between me and you
by kohee
Summary: The first time was probably an accident. The second time probably was, too. But if there's a third...then how many times would it take before it stops being accidental? In short, the push and pull between Aizawa Kosaku and Shiraishi Megumi. Aizawa/Shiraishi
1. 01: a one-time thing

chaptered fic; _between me and you_ (01: the first time)  
pairing: aizawa kosaku/shiraishi megumi  
word count: 2567 words  
note: season 3 timeline, but probably following none (or very little) of canon events. I know where I want to take this and it's probably not what the Code Blue writers want, haha. I planned for a one-shot, but it was getting away from me, so I split it up. I don't plan for this to be long, but let's see where this takes me. More notes at the end. This is too mild to be rated M (for now), but things do get heated, so be forewarned.

* * *

The first time was an accident, he thought. Probably.

They had a long, harrowing day in Emergency, one of those days where they lost more people than they could save. No matter how many years it had been, no matter how experienced they were or how accustomed they should be in facing death, it was never easy. Hopping in and out of the Heli numerous times, to have patients die on site, en route, or in the emergency room, it took a toll on all of them, and they were all exhausted, drained and admittedly just a little emotional at the end of the day.

Aizawa was happy just to go home and collapsed onto his bed, before it all starts again in approximately eight hours. But somehow, he found himself dragged to Mary Jane's bar by Fujikawa, with Shiraishi and Hiyama in tow.

Before long, the lightweight among them, Shiraishi, was drunk. The other two doctors, having to take the nightshift in three hours, remained sober. And he, of course he wasn't drunk. It would take a lot, both alcohol and emotions, to get him drunk.

But as Fujikawa and Hiyama headed back to Shohoku for their nightshift, he found himself alone with a very drunk and very friendly Shiraishi. He contemplated just putting her into a taxi, and giving the driver her address, but then he found himself getting into the taxi with her, and helping her into her apartment, with her giggling incoherently and draping herself all over him at certain points.

It was all very disconcerting.

"Let's drink some more!" She cheered as he got the door opened, slamming it shut behind him. He rolled his eyes, grabbing her arm to steady her as she nearly tripped over her own feet. She burst into giggles, regaining her balance and poking her finger into his cheek.

"Thank you, Aizawa-sensei, you're sooooo nice…I'll reward you with sake…it's in the kitchen…" she lurched towards the kitchen, but he kept his iron grip on her upper arm and steered her towards what he thought should be her bedroom.

"No, wait, where are you going? There's no sake there! It's…"

"No sake. You're not going to drink anymore, if I can help it," he muttered.

He managed to get her to her bedroom, and sat her down on her bed carefully, where she promptly fell over, still laughing to herself. Fleetingly, he contemplated taking off her coat, but decided against it, instead moving to put her bag on her dresser, placing her keys next to it.

He didn't exactly know what compelled him to look for a towel and wet it with hot water, but he did just exactly that. When he emerged from the bathroom with towel in hand, she was lying down, eyes closed, seemingly asleep. Sighing, he sat down gingerly at the edge of her bed and placed the towel on her forehead. Just as he did, her hand shot up, and caught his. Naturally, his first instinct was to pull away, but then he saw a tear escaping from beneath her eyelids.

"They were children…" she slurred, curling his fingers around his wrist. "Three of them…they were four, six and nine…I couldn't save them…not even one…"

He still remembered. It was the first case of the day; three children and their mother crushed by falling debris from a construction. They had only managed to save the mother, who was now currently lying in Intensive Care Unit, her condition critical.

She gave a shaky laugh, as another tear slid down her cheek. "Aizawa…why doesn't it ever get easier? After all these years, I still cannot do what Kuroda-sensei told me to do from day one – keep my emotions, my feelings, separate. Steel myself. Compartmentalise myself. But it's still so hard." She opened her eyes then, and her gaze rested on his. "How do _you_ do it?"

Aizawa looked at her, unable to say anything. Her tears were unnerving him, they always had. He hated seeing her cry. Mostly because he knew there was nothing _he_ could do to make her feel better. He wasn't the sort that could say the right words. More often than not, he ended saying the wrong ones.

He momentarily flashbacked to that one time where Shiraishi had completely lost her composure in the train, after the train station collapse. He didn't know what to do either; the only thing he was able to do was to stand in front of her, blocking curious, prying eyes from her pain and despair.

Instead, he gently extracted her hand from his, and dabbed her forehead with the hot towel. "You should sleep," he said, his voice measured.

She laughed, and it was no longer giddy and giggly, it sounded sad. Defeated. "I should, but I know I won't be able to."

He sighed. "Shiraishi…"

He felt her fingers grasping his forearm, as she pushed herself up to his eye level. Her hair was dishevelled, her cheeks were flushed but her eyes were surprisingly clear for someone who had so much to drink.

She was beautiful.

But he knew that all along.

And this was dangerous territory. Extremely dangerous territory.

He felt his escape mechanism kicking into place, as he removed his hand from her forehead, ready to take flight, but she closed the gap between their faces, and pressed her mouth against his.

Her lips were soft, tinged with alcohol and the salt of her tears. It wasn't a shy, hesitant kiss; it wasn't something he'd expect from Shiraishi. It was almost aggressive the way she melded her lips to his, nibbling and nipping as her other hand came up to grip his other arm, moving closer to him.

If he was honest to himself, he had thought of this before, perhaps even thought of it often. They had been dancing around each other for so long, over the years.

Therefore, the only natural thing to do was to kiss her back.

His lips slanted over hers as he moved his hands up her back, pulling her against his chest, and her hands slid up his arms to the nape of his neck. She opened her mouth to him, and his tongue slipped into the sweet caverns of her mouth.

She tasted like sake, like honey, like rainwater and autumn wind, she tasted like _Shiraishi_ , and when her tongue met his, battling his in a possessive, un-Shiraishi-like way, he could feel the vestiges of his self-control slipping further. He couldn't remember the last time he had a kiss that made him feel like this, made him feel like he could lose control any given moment.

Shiraishi shifted herself, so that she was almost sitting on his lap, never lifting her lips from his as she continued exploring his mouth, licking and nibbling and sucking on his tongue. She tugged at his jacket, pulling it off, and just as quickly, he removed her coat, tossing it aside.

His hands slipped under her blouse, his fingers stroking the smooth, bare skin of her waist, as she busied herself with the buttons of his shirt, unbuttoning one, and then the other, resting her hand on his chest as she kissed him.

Somewhere at the back of his mind, his inner voice was yelling at him. She was drunk, she was upset, and he was essentially taking advantage of her. That thought stopped him dead in his tracks, stifling his passion.

He would never take advantage of her.

"Shiraishi," he murmured against her lips, and then he tore away from her reluctantly, and stilled her wandering hands, pushing her away from him. "Shiraishi, stop."

She stared at him, her lips swollen from his kisses, and it was all he could do not to grab her, and take her mouth with his again.

"You're drunk," he said, matter-of-factly. "You don't want this."

She pushed back her bangs with one hand. "Maybe I'm drunk," she acknowledged. "But I'm not drunk enough to not know what I'm doing."

He shook his head, he wasn't convinced. His best move now was still to leave, and maybe it would be awkward tomorrow, but they'd managed it, at least, he knew that he would be able to. He wasn't quite sure how he would handle never kissing her again, but impossible was never a word in his vocabulary after all. He'd managed. Somehow.

"I should go," he said, pushing himself into a standing position, picking up his jacket from the floor. "And you should…"

"Aizawa," she interrupted him, standing up as well, swaying a little, teetering off balance. Instinctively, he reached out to grip her arm, steadying her. Their eyes met, and even before she spoke, he knew that it was futile, he wouldn't be able to leave her now. "Stay with me."

Shiraishi stepped closer and threaded her fingers through his hair, closing her eyes. And then she kissed him, and it had nothing of the urgency and passion of just now, it was slow and tender.

As their passion built, his jacket again dropped onto the floor, and she finished unbuttoning his shirt. As his shirt slid off his shoulders, he pushed her back towards the bed, and they fell into bed together, still kissing. His hand caressed the smooth skin of her stomach, inching up her ribcage towards her breasts, and he lifted his lips from hers, looking at her. He just had to ask, one more time.

"Are you sure?" he asked quietly.

By the way of a reply, she tugged his head towards hers, and kissed him hard.

* * *

Both the alarms on their phones went off simultaneously.

Aizawa jolted awake at the alternating shrill ringing and monotonous beeping sounds, while Shiraishi groaned a little and pulled her covers over her head. Hazily, he groped around the floor, finally locating his jacket, pulling out his phone and turning off his alarm.

Her phone was still going off, however, the beeping escalating obnoxiously. He looked around for her coat, praying her phone was in there, for his head was about to explode from the beeping. He spotted her coat from the floor, where it was lying in a heap next to his jeans. Grabbing it, he rifled through the pocket, and to his relief, found her phone, and he switched it off.

The sudden silence that permeated the room was slightly perturbing, especially Shiraishi was still huddled under her covers.

He supposed he should maybe start getting dressed, and then maybe head to work. But he couldn't leave without speaking to her, and he'd be damned if he left her a note.

Quickly, Aizawa pulled on his jeans and slipped on his shirt, buttoning it. Combing his fingers deftly through his hair, he glanced at the lump that was Shiraishi, and sighed to himself. He rested his hand on her shoulder, and shook her gently.

"Shiraishi."

"Five more minutes, Hiyama," she mumbled, swatting his hand away.

"Shiraishi," he repeated, his voice firm. "Wake up."

He saw her shoulders stiffened as his voice permeated into her sleep-addled brain, as she processed the fact that the person shaking her at that moment was _not_ Hiyama. With a gasp, she turned around, and sat up straight, her eyes landing on his face, her blankets slipping off her body.

It didn't help to make things easier when his eyes involuntarily slid towards her very naked torso. She gave an embarrassed squeak, and scrambled for her blankets. He was proud that he managed to keep his face fairly impassive.

She tightened the blankets around herself and averted her eyes. "Uhhhh…good morning."

"Morning," he returned.

"Urm, would you like some coffee?" She attempted weakly.

He shook his head, and then decided to just plunge right in. "Shiraishi, about last night...I'm…well. I apologise. You clearly weren't in the right frame of mind, and I shouldn't have…"

She stared at him. "What are you talking about? I know I was drunk, but I remembered…well, _some_ of it…" her voice trailed off. "Please don't apologise. You have nothing to apologise for."

"All the same, I…"

"Aizawa," she cut him off. "It's _fine._ We're both adults, consenting adults. We can be mature about this. It was just…well…things happened. We can put this behind us, and be the way we always are…" She knew that she was babbling, but it felt like that was all she could do at the moment.

The last thing she wanted was for _him_ to feel like he had taken advantage of her, when it was practically the other way round. She didn't remember all that happened last night, but she clearly remembered jumping on Aizawa. And he was probably too polite to push her away. And one thing led to another, and as stoic and ice-king as Aizawa was, biologically he was still belonged to the male species.

Thank goodness she could, and would be adult about this. It probably wasn't a big issue to Aizawa, knowing him, so long as he didn't feel that he did anything wrong. And he didn't.

"I mean, it's okay. I'm okay. It's just…a thing."

A shadow of emotion flickered past his eyes, but just as quickly, it was gone. "A thing," he repeated, looking away from her.

An awkward silence settled between them before he cleared his throat and stood up. "Well. I'll see you at work later, then."

She nodded. "Urm…I hope you don't mind if I don't see you out." She was _still_ naked, after all.

He tilted his head slightly to acknowledge her, and then he was gone.

As she heard her apartment door shutting, she fell back onto her pillows and let out a frustrated groan. _I am never, ever drinking again_ , she vowed.

* * *

"Well, don't you look refreshed!" Hiyama said chirpily as Shiraishi walked into their office. "I expected you to look like a complete wreck after your drinking adventures last night."

She gave a start, staring at her friend. Did she mean…"What?"

"Oh, come on," Hiyama teased, poking her at the side of her ribs. "You know how you are when you're drunk. What did you do to Aizawa after we left?"

 _What did I do to Aizawa...?!_ She could still remember _some_ of the things they did yesterday...

Shiraishi sputtered her face red, and pushed the images out of her head. She was about to give a vague answer when a shadow fell over them. "Hiyama," Aizawa said curtly. "I believe patient in 5B was yours. Her husband has a few questions for you."

"Good morning to you, too." Hiyama quipped sarcastically.

As Hiyama left, Shiraishi turned to her work station, opening her laptop and grabbing a nearby file. Aizawa was still standing where he was, looking at her, but not saying anything. She looked up after a while. "Do you need anything, Aizawa-sensei?"

"Do you want to have lunch together later?" He asked abruptly.

In all her years of knowing him, she could count on the fingers on two hands the number of times he had initiated lunch with her, or with any of them, for that matter.

"Uhhh…sure? I'll tell Hiyama and Fujikawa?"

She saw his eyes shifted, and then he gave a curt nod, picking up his stethoscope, heading towards the emergency room.

She let out a breath. _Act normal_ , she told herself. _Everything is normal_.

As normal as things could be after sleeping with Aizawa Kosaku, anyway.

* * *

A/N: So I've never really written for this fandom before. The only time I ever wrote Code Blue fanfiction was all the way back in 2009, where it was actually more of a Kurosagi fanfiction rather than Code Blue. I borrowed Aizawa to make things complicated for Tsurara, and threw in Shiraishi for the heck of it (it's actually still alive at my defunct livejournal: *at* kohee (search the yamaki tag - yes, I was a huge Yampi/Maki fan)

Code Blue has never been about romance but to be honest, Aizawa x Shiraishi was my OTP since season 1, even though I knew it wasn't happening. Season 2 was hopeful, but still kinda nah. Season 3 right now, though, the first episode itself had me going sdgsldkfslkdfsdl! I know it eventually died down (damnit), but still, the first episode allowed me to imagine…hence this fic.

(Also the fandom is dead, I just want to have something in this section)

Reviews are very very much appreciated!


	2. 02: maybe this, maybe that

chaptered fic; _between me and you_ (02: maybe this, maybe that)  
pairing: aizawa kosaku/shiraishi megumi  
word count: 3705 words  
note: more post-accident happenings. Longer chapter for this one because I got a bit carried away with our favourite Awesome-Foursome interaction. More notes at the end.

* * *

"Aizawa! I could scarcely believe it when Shiraishi told us _you_ asked us for lunch! I half expected to see flying pigs and glittering unicorns," Fujikawa jibbed cheerfully as his tray clattered down next to Aizawa's.

"I did not ask _you_ ," Aizawa responded coolly, removing the lid of his miso soup. "Shiraishi did."

Fujikawa made a face. "Charming as always."

"Come on, Fujikawa-sensei. It's rare to have that one quiet moment in Emergency that enables all of us to have lunch together, so let's just enjoy that." Shiraishi pulled out a chair opposite to Aizawa, as Hiyama settled down beside her, lunch tray in hand.

Aizawa's eyes drifted towards her, and held her in his gaze, and she felt a flush creeping up her neck. Praying fervently that no one noticed, especially him, she cleared her throat, and pulled her tray towards her, and picking up her chopsticks.

They had not really talked since he left her apartment; had not talked the entire morning. She had a feeling that his lunch invitation today wasn't meant to include the other two, but she just needed some time to fend off the awkwardness she was feeling. It wasn't that she was _trying_ to avoid him exactly, but things were just…weird. After all, she didn't have a lot of experience sleeping with a colleague. Or to be fair, she never had that experience. The fact that it was _Aizawa_ was more than just a little disconcerting. She had known him for so long without _really_ knowing him, so it was hardly surprising that her thoughts were all jumbled right now.

Still, as she had reminded herself, and him, this morning, they were all adults. It would be fine, of course.

"Oh, Aizawa. Thank you for taking my drunk roommate home yesterday night," Hiyama said offhandedly, tearing the lid of her yoghurt and spooning it. "I trust that you took good care of her."

Shiraishi was taking a big bite of noodles as Hiyama said that, and to her horror, she started choking on her food, coughing as her noodles went down her trachea instead of her oesophagus.

"Geez, Shiraishi," Hiyama fumbled in her pockets for a tissue, and dug one out from the right pocket of her scrubs. She turned to her friend, and saw that she was already holding a napkin in her hand, still coughing violently, and Aizawa was right beside her, patting her back firmly.

Her cough soon subsided, and she grabbed her glass of iced-tea, taking a few quick swallows as she wiped away the tears that came about because of her coughing fit.

"Are you all right?" Aizawa asked, and she nodded quickly, taking another sip of tea, finishing it.

Hiyama casted a glance at Fujikawa, who was staring at his colleagues with his mouth wide opened. It wasn't that Aizawa was the first to response, or that he gave Shiraishi a napkin, or that he patted her to help her with her choking. As cold-hearted and indifferent as Aizawa portrayed himself to be, they knew otherwise, after nine whole years together.

It was the fact that he still had his hand on Shiraishi's back even after she had stopped choking. And that hand was running up and down Shiraishi's back in a reassuring manner that was extremely unlike Aizawa.

Hiyama could practically see the gossip antenna sprouting from the sides of Fujikawa's head. But he wisely kept his mouth shut, although she was very sure that some sort of talk will be reaching the ears of the likes of Morimoto-sensei and Kaji-san soon.

She gazed at Aizawa and Shiraishi shrewdly as she shoved her juice towards her roommate. Aizawa had taken his seat, and resumed eating his noodles as if nothing had happened.

"Thanks, Hiyama," Shiraishi said gratefully as she took the juice, looking a bit flustered. Hiyama had a funny feeling that it wasn't entirely due to choking on her food.

 _Something_ was up between those two, she thought. It was as plain as the noses on their faces. Shiraishi had never been particularly good at hiding her feelings or her thoughts, and Aizawa…well, he mostly acted like his emotions were permanently stored in a freezer most of the time, which made that little exchange curiouser and curiouser.

Hiyama smiled to herself. She would just have to force it out of Shiraishi later. It wouldn't take much, probably just about four standard drinks.

* * *

Shiraishi tapped her pen against her teeth as she frowned at the surgical report in her hand. Making a few quick notations, she kept her eyes trained on the report as she wrote, her left hand pushing aside all other paperwork, aiming for her laptop, which was just beyond reach.

"Here," she heard a voice above her shoulder, and looked up to see Aizawa placing her laptop next to her.

"Thanks," she flashed him a brief smile and open the lid of her laptop. Silence settled between them, the only sounds in the room were muffled chatter in the distance, and the whirring of the laptop as it started up.

Aizawa took his seat at the table across from hers, flipping open the lid of his own laptop. They worked quietly, typing reports and finishing patient summaries, but Shiraishi's concentration had been broken. She was acutely aware of the doctor across from her, and every move he was making; the slight squeak of the wheels of his chair as he spun to the table behind him to locate something, the rifling of papers, the clattering of the keyboard as he typed.

Shiraishi nibbled at her nail as she pretended to concentrate at an image of a CT scan on her screen. At some level, she supposed that they should talk about what had happened between them. Recalling it, she felt an involuntary flush creeping up her neck. She wasn't herself when she drinks, she knew that. She could get erratic, crazy and irrational; completely out of character.

It was certainly out of character for her, to put it mildly, to ask Aizawa to stay with her, and for her to initiate what had transpired between them.

It wasn't her, this whole one-night-stand thing. She wasn't a prude, but she wasn't in the habit of falling into bed with random men, although it might be extremely unfair to classify Aizawa as a "random man". She cherished the sanctity of intimacy to a degree.

But what had happened had happened, and they still had to work together, so perhaps it was best to clear the air. She just needed for Aizawa to understand that she was okay, and she expected nothing from him, because she knew that he wouldn't want anything. He wouldn't want any strings hanging, and that was fine, because neither did she.

There was a strange pinch in her heart as she thought that. She thought she knew why, but she tamped it down, refusing to verbalise it, even in her head.

Shiraishi cleared her throat. "Aizawa."

He looked up, his face impassive.

"Should we talk?"

He looked at her carefully, and then in one swift moment, he rolled his chair over to her side of the table, so that they were face-to-face. She had known him long enough to know that that was a yes, they should talk, but she had to be the one to start talking.

"About last night…I was upset. And…I wasn't...well. It was very kind of you stay with me, but I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable."

"Don't apologise," he said evenly. "There's no need to. I stayed because I wanted to. That's all." His expression didn't change, betraying none of his emotions or thoughts.

"Oh," she managed. _What did he mean by that? He stayed because he "wanted to"? Wanted to what? To accompany me? To sleep with me?_

"No one should be alone when they're upset, if they didn't have to be," he said in a low tone.

"Oh," she said again, feeling strangely touched. "Anyway…uhhh…I'm not expecting, well, I don't expect anything else from…I mean, it was an accident," she finished, clamping down on her embarrassment.

A strange expression flitted across his face, one that she couldn't quite make out. "An accident," he repeated.

She continued in a rush. "I just want to make sure, that, you know, you're, I mean, we're…"

"Shiraishi," he interrupted. "I presume that we're having this conversation because we do not want whatever happened last night to affect our working relationship. It won't. At least, from my side, it won't."

She let out the breath she didn't realise she was holding. "Well, it won't. For me, too."

Aizawa looked at her steadily for a few seconds, as if he expected her to say something else, but when she didn't, he turned away, rolling his chair back to his desk.

"So, we're okay?" She knew he hated repeating himself, but she had to make sure.

He kept his eyes trained on his laptop screen, typing rapidly. "Yes, we are."

* * *

Hiyama looked up as she heard the door opening, and Shiraishi dragging herself into her apartment, looking exhausted. Without a word, she walked into the living room, collapsing on the couch next to Hiyama, closing her eyes. "I'm so tired."

Her roommate closed her magazine and tossed it on the coffee table. "Start talking," she ordered.

"What are you talking about?" Shiraishi asked, eyes still closed.

"Don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about. What happened yesterday after Fujikawa and I left?" Hiyama prodded her roommate at the ribs.

"Nothing happened," she replied quickly. Too quickly.

"Oh no, don't even try, Shiraishi. You're an awful liar."

"I need a drink." Shiraishi got up, and headed into the kitchen. She grabbed a glass from the dish-drying rack, opening the refrigerator, and getting out a carton of orange juice. Hiyama followed her into the kitchen.

"Don't make me ply you with alcohol to get the truth out of you."

"Nothing happened!" Shiraishi took a huge gulp of juice, but her roommate immediately caught the faint blush on her face.

"What? Did you sleep with him or something?" She asked jokingly, and Shiraishi sputtered, nearly choking on her juice. Her blush deepened, and Hiyama's eyes widened.

"No way! You _slept_ with _Aizawa_?!"

Shiraishi winced. "Kind of."

"Kind of? Either you did, or you didn't."

"Okay, I did, but it was…I was drunk. You know how I can get…and he was just being nice."

Hiyama wrinkled her nose. "'Nice' and 'Aizawa' don't exactly go together, not in the same sentence. And besides, he can be nice to you without needing having sex with you."

"I was very upset," she said quietly. "And…I don't know what he was thinking, really, but I think neither of us meant for it to happen. It just did."

Her roommate raised an eyebrow. Personally, she really couldn't say she was very surprised. Those two have been circling each other for years now. Suddenly, she gave a snort of laughter. "I'm sorry, but the idea of Aizawa being hot-blooded enough to have sexual desire is…"

"Hiyama!" Shiraishi covered her face in embarrassment. "I really don't want to talk about it any further," she said hurriedly, putting her glass into the sink and practically running to her bedroom.

The door slammed, leaving Hiyama standing alone in the kitchen.

Well. That was certainly an unexpected turn of events. Chewing on her nail, she stared at her friend's closed bedroom door. However things progress from there onwards, she just hoped Shiraishi would not get hurt.

* * *

Things were _actually_ normal.

The first couple of days were just the teeniest bit awkward. Aizawa and Shiraishi side-stepped each other more than usual, but Hiyama pretended she knew nothing, and Fujikawa was too dense to really notice anything out of ordinary. But then, they encountered a rather dire situation of a collapsed wall at a construction site, where the entire team was dispatched for emergency rescue, and that sort of kicked everything back into the rightful order.

They fell back to the easy camaraderie of working together – performing surgeries, taking Heli-duties - and resumed their daily bickering and arguing over the training of the Fellows. She bought him canned coffee during the late shifts, and he bought her sandwiches when she was all caught up during mealtimes.

It took a couple of weeks, but they were back to where they were.

* * *

Aizawa stripped off his gloves and undid his surgical mask. "Patient has been stabilised. Move her into Intensive Care, and monitor the blood pressure. Let me know if it drops."

Saejima nodded, making quick notations on the patient's chart. "Got it," she said, hanging the chart at the foot of the bed, and pushed the patient out, assisted by Yokomine.

He took off his surgical gown, casting a look at the clock.

Shiraishi should have finished her interview about thirty minutes ago. She had been selected to apply for a one-week lecture programme on Emergency Medicine organised by the John Hopkins School of Medicine. It was a highly prestigious programme, and would be greatly beneficial to her career. He would be lying if he claimed he wasn't tempted to apply for it himself, but he supposed as staff leader, she should have the opportunity.

He walked into the office, wanting to write up the patient's notes whilst it was still fresh in his mind. He was nearly finishing when Hiyama walked in, still dressed in her street clothes, yet to change for work. "Heard anything?" he asked, without looking up.

"She didn't get it," Hiyama hung up her coat and deposited her bag on her chair.

Aizawa looked up. "What?"

"She didn't get it," she repeated. "I didn't know exactly what went wrong, she wouldn't say."

He put down his pen slowly. "Is she okay?"

She shrugged. "You think? She's at home, if you want to check on her. I would've stayed with her, but I'm on night shift today. Fujikawa couldn't swap with me, and you weren't picking up your phone." She picked up her stethoscope and hung it around her neck, heading for the locker room. She paused mid-way, and without turning around, said, "at least give her a call, or something."

He didn't answer her.

* * *

Shiraishi was lying down on the couch, replaying the interview in her head when her doorbell rang. Sighing, she sat up. She told Hiyama she didn't want anything, but it looked like her roommate had gone ahead and ordered her food. Dragging herself to the door, she opened it, to reveal Aizawa standing outside.

"Aizawa," she said, surprised. "What are you doing here?"

"Hiyama told me," he said without preamble. "Can I come in?"

She lifted her shoulder in a shrug, and stepped aside, as he walked in and took off his jacket. They stood awkwardly at the door, before Shiraishi shuffled to the couch and slumped down. He sat down beside her, hands clasped together.

"Do you want to tell me what happened?" he asked finally.

She contemplated on saying no, because she really didn't want to, but she looked up, and saw the look of rare, genuine concern in his eyes. She leaned back and sighed. "They asked me to describe my biggest challenge as a trainee, and wanted elaboration on how I overcame the said challenge. And I…I just froze."

She didn't need to explain any further, he instantly knew. "Shiraishi…"

She cut him off before he could say any more. "Anyway. For the rest of the interview, I couldn't concentrate, couldn't say the right things, and that was that."

He knew there was more to it, of course, but if she wasn't telling him, he would not assume. "This is one interview, one opportunity," he said calmly. "Take this as an experience, and learn from it. There's no use dwelling on this."

"It's not about failing the interview!" she burst out suddenly, the emotions she had been holding in spilling forth. "It's about…you _knew_ what it's really about. It's been…eight years, and I thought I had put it behind me, a long time ago. But when they asked that question, all I could remember was…" she swallowed the lump in her throat, she simply refused to cry in front of him. Taking a deep breath, she covered her face, attempting to regain her composure. "Sometimes, I just wish I could be like you, you know?"

He didn't say anything, he just continued looking at her, waiting for her to finish.

"You know precisely how to react in every situation. You don't dwell on mistakes. You don't dwell on what-ifs. You just…push ahead. Doing exactly what you need to do." She lifted her head, looking at him. "How do you do it?"

"I'm a doctor," he said. "I'm not God. I make every single medical decision to the best of my abilities and my knowledge. Sometimes, it doesn't work. It's easy to trap yourself within that vortex when it doesn't, but that has no value, it doesn't help."

She sniffed, but he was relieved to see that there were no tears.

"Shiraishi," he moved just a little closer to her. "Feeling guilty and affected, even over something that had happened years ago, is natural. But don't let it dictate you."

She let out her breath in a huff, and nodded. They sat in companionable silence, until she let out a small laugh. "You know, this is the first time I've ever failed a test or an interview."

The corner of his mouth lifted. "Somehow, that doesn't surprise me."

She nudged his shoulder with hers. "You're one to talk, Mr. Perfect."

He leaned back on her couch and crossed his legs. "I failed an anatomy paper in my first semester of medical school."

Her eyebrows shot up in surprise. " _You_?"

"My grandmother broke her wrist at the time. Finances were tough, so I secretly started working to help out. She was furious when she found out, however. Made me promised that I'd never work while I was studying."

At least she never had to worry about finances when she was studying. In fact, all her life, she never needed to worry about money at all. She had always known about how tough Aizawa was, how he basically fought for scholarships and bulldozed his way through medical school and housemanship, but she felt like she was really starting to appreciate him for being so brilliant, despite his circumstances.

"Well, it's a revelation to find out that Mr. Perfect isn't _that_ perfect after all," she said lightly, as he scowled at her.

"Don't you dare tell anyone about this, especially Fujikawa," he muttered, already regretting that he told her about that one blemish on his academic record.

"I won't," she said. Another silence settled between them. Aizawa thought perhaps he should go, she seemed all right now, but a small part of him was reluctant to. He knew how she could be. She could easily fall back to the vortex he talked about, and her confidence would take another hit.

"I'm fine," Shiraishi said suddenly, as if she read his mind. "If you need to go, please do. Thank you for coming over. Really. I truly appreciate it."

She flashed him a smile, and as he looked at her, he saw that her smile didn't really reach her eyes, and there were still conflicting emotions within their depths.

Aizawa didn't exactly know why he did what he did next. He, who was always so rational, so practical, made his second irrational decision in as many weeks.

He surged forward, hands on her shoulders, and before she could react, he kissed her. She stilled, not responding, and he started to pull back, apologies already forming in his head. They had agreed that everything was normal, okay, unchanged, he didn't quite know how to explain this one.

And then he felt her lips began to move against his, without hesitation, as she returned his kiss, her hands gripping his neck before sliding up to his hair. His hands slid down her back, down to her hips, as he pulled her closer to him. He angled his head, intensifying the kiss, running his tongue over her upper lip, and she sighed, soft and breathless. Her fingers curled around the hair at the nape of his neck as she pressed herself closer to him, kissing him like she couldn't get enough of him.

He plundered her mouth, and she was as sweet and as exhilarating as he remembered. All the memories of their night together came rushing forth as she nipped at his lips, entangling her tongue with his. His hand slipped underneath her blouse, splaying his fingers on the bare skin of her hips, his mouth on hers insistent, but she wasn't allowing him full control.

Aizawa wanted that control, however, and he was pretty used to getting his own way. He scooped up her slender legs, dragging her onto his lap, never breaking the kiss. She shifted, almost straddling him, her knees gripping the sides of his thighs as her hands drifted downward, moving to untuck his shirt. She never lifted her mouth from his, nibbling lightly at his bottom lip as their tongues battle for dominance.

"Shiraishi…" he breathed her name into her mouth as his hand travelled up her back under her blouse. She was busying herself with the buttons of his shirt, unfastening one, and then another. It was reminiscent of that night, but there was no alcohol involved this time. None whatsoever. They would not be able to use the drunken excuse after this.

He reached up, and caught her hand with his, just as she was about to undo the third button. He broke off the kiss, panting slightly, and pulled back to look at her. She was breathing as hard as he was, her eyes wide.

The question was unasked, not verbalised, yet it reverberated throughout the room.

 _Are we really doing this?_

Aizawa waited. He initiated it, he knew. But it was her call. He would never do anything she didn't want to do, no matter how much he wanted it.

Shiraishi gave him a small smile, placing a hand on his cheek. Leaning in, she kissed him, slowly, languidly. She wanted it. She wanted him. He leaned into her, and deepened the kiss, pushing her shirt upwards.

He'd think about the consequences later.

* * *

A/N: I can't remember the last time I was on such a roll. I guess being obsessed with a pairing really does that to me. Anyway, here's the second chapter! I am still contemplating on whether do I want to be explicit…errr…specific about their second time. That's kinda up in the air…so what do y'all want? If the request for specifics is made, I'm more than happy to have a go at it, ahahah. I do eventually plan to get specific anyway, since Code Blue writers are never ever going to go _there_ , lol.

Anyway, if I ended up detailing the rendezvous (in the next chapter), I'll have to change the rating into M, so set your filters accordingly to locate this fic.

On another note, I will be excruciatingly busy at work the next two days, and then I leave for Beijing for work. Probably wouldn't be able to update this one for about slightly more than a week (about 10 days, give or take), so apologies for that.

But please do keep your reviews, comments and criticisms coming. Or even suggestions. I have a framework for this fic (especially the ending lol), but the in-betweens are always changeable.

Thanks for reading!

Extra note: I uploaded an old Kurosagi/Code Blue crossover fic I wrote nine years ago. Click on the "Crossover" tab on the top right hand corner to find it. Set your filters to include **M** , please :) (caution: mature content)


	3. 03: and we're not talking about this

chaptered fic; _between me and you_ (03: and we're not talking about this)  
pairing: aizawa kosaku/shiraishi megumi  
word count: 4554 words  
note: **warning:** adult and mature content aka smut in the beginning. If that's not your thing, feel free to skip the entire part, you won't miss much. I apologise for the (bad) pr0n right off the bat, hahaha, obviously I have too much imagination on how my ship should behave.

* * *

He felt that he could never, ever get tired of kissing her.

They stumbled rather ungracefully into her room, nearly knocking into her dresser, and then her floor lamp, because they were both so preoccupied with kissing each other than they couldn't orientate themselves. Their hands were roaming over each other's bodies, as if they were almost trying to map each line and curve into their memories.

He ran his hand down the side of her body, fingers grazing over bare skin, down to her waist, her hips and her thighs, wanting to remember how every inch of her skin felt like. Her palms were pressed against his bare chest, her fingers mapping each curve of his muscles, her touch sending desire coursing through every fibre of his being.

Shiraishi pushed his shirt off his shoulders, dropping it onto the floor, as he pulled her blouse over her head, and discarded it. She gave a little sigh as he nibbled on her bottom lip, tugging it sensuously, as he slipped his hand under the waistband of her slacks, and she gasped as he grasped the arc of her backside.

Their kisses are growing a little more frenzied, their mouths melting together in a hot embrace. Her hands had entangled themselves in his hair, tugging lightly as she pressed herself needily against him. He unbuttoned her slacks in one swift movement, pulling down the zipper. Pushing her backwards, he set her down on her bed gently, his mouth never leaving hers, and tugged her slacks downwards. She was almost completely exposed to him now, but he wanted to take his time with her, he wanted this to be all about her.

Aizawa hovered over her, his arms holding him up, his legs on either side of hers. She laced her fingers behind his neck and pulled his head downwards to hers, her tongue gliding against his. A momentary need for air caused him to pull away, and she gave a little whine of protest. She opened her eyes, and saw him looking at her, with a small smile on his face, as he tenderly brushed back her bangs from her face.

Leaning down, he began pressing kisses on her cheeks, trailing down to her jaw, and her breath hitched as his lips found the pulse point on her neck. He nipped at her neck, and soothed each little bite with a swipe of his tongue. His hand was seeking for the clasp to her bra, and once he found it, he undid the garment within seconds, and he closed one hand almost reverently over her right breast as he continued kissing her neck.

Shiraishi moaned, arching herself into his touch, as his lips trailed lower, over her collarbone, before closing over her left nipple.

"Oh!" she gasped, one hand clenching at the bedsheets, the other hand clutching at locks of his hair. The breathless sound of pure desire had him hardening almost instantly. He alternated between sucking and licking as his hand drifted downwards. She grabbed his hand, and dragged it downwards to waistband of her underwear, letting him know what she wanted. What she needed.

Without hesitation, Aizawa pressed two fingers against her core, and he found that she was almost ready for him. Removing her underwear, he slid his finger into her slick, wet heat, probing, giving her pleasure. Her body was so responsive to him, she pushed back as he persisted on pushing in, feeling her on the inside. He added another finger, twisting them as his tongue on her nipple reflecting the movement of his fingers, and her head fell back, panting, as she lost herself in a haze of pleasure.

He could feel that she was close, and he continued stroking her, his fingers urging her to let go, and she did, her body shuddering, and he leaned up and pressed his mouth against hers as she careened towards her release.

Her body relaxed, and her breathing slowed, as she opened her eyes. Lifting herself up, she placed a hand on his cheek, and kissed him languorously, as her other hand tugged at his belt buckle. Her fingers brushed against his straining erection and he growled low in his throat, yearning for more of her touch. He helped her, unbuckling his belt, and his pants soon landed in a heap on the floor, along with their other discarded clothes.

His breath caught as she touched him, almost shyly, and then she grew bolder, running her hand up his length. She switched between gripping him and stroking him, and she was making him feel like he was about lose his mind any given moment. He stilled her hand, almost reluctantly, and she raised her eyes to meet his.

"Aizawa…" she breathed. "Please."

Their lips crashed together hungrily, as he eased her back down onto her bed, his body pressing powerfully against hers. He couldn't wait anymore, and neither could she, but at the last moment, before they got too carried away, he remembered.

They were in her bottom drawer, he recalled, as he lifted himself from her with obvious effort, and retrieved the protection. His hands – his precise, steady, surgeon's hands – were shaking as he tried to open the packet, and she couldn't help but laugh. Taking it from him, she removed the condom, and then rolled it onto him in one deft movement.

They fell onto the bed again, hands and lips tangled up in each other, as he slowly pushed himself into her, sinking into her. She bit her lip as she took him all the way in, allowing her body to adjust itself to having him inside her. He moved, slowly, and she moaned in pleasure. Her hand found his, and she laced her fingers around his as he picked up the pace, thrusting into her with long, deep strokes.

She hooked one leg around his waist, allowing him to push him deeper. She was so wet, clenching around him as they move together in tandem. He caressed her breast, rubbing her nipple, bringing her closer to the brink. He increased his intensity, and she pushed back against him, raking her nails down his back as she bit down on his shoulder, holding him close against her.

She was on the edge, teetering. He didn't slow down, bringing her closer still, nibbling at her earlobe.

"Shiraishi," his voice was low, dark with desire and lust. "Let go."

And she did, trembling with ecstasy, and he joined her mere moments later, both reaching the heights of their combined pleasure.

He collapsed against her, as they both breathed heavily, trying to regain their senses. He tried not to rest his full body weight against her frame, but she didn't seem to mind, pulling him on top of her as she nestled against the crook of his neck. As soon as he could feel his legs again, he pulled out of her, discarding the condom quickly, before settling down beside her again.

Shiraishi arched into him, fitting her body to his, one hand on his chest as her eyes fluttered shut. She was asleep within moments, the exhaustion, the emotions and the disappointment of the day catching up to her.

Aizawa didn't fall asleep immediately. He stroked her hair as she slept, watching her intently. Pressing a kiss against her forehead, he closed his eyes as well.

He had a feeling that he may be in too deep.

* * *

Shiraishi opened her eyes. Her room was still dark; it was still early. She had her own internal alarm clock, so she gathered it would probably be about six o'clock in the morning. As her orientation settled in, she became very well aware of the arm draped heavily around her waist, under her covers.

Aizawa's arm.

The happenings of the previous night flooded into her senses. She wasn't drunk this time, and therefore she could recall every single detail, clear as day. Heat rose to her cheeks as an inexplicable mix of emotions crashed over her.

She had gotten carried away, and had slept with Aizawa…again. Inwardly, she groaned, rubbing her face with one hand. She still didn't know how exactly had that happened. They were talking…and then for some reason, he kissed her.

She had been kissed a number of times in her life, of course, but no one had ever kissed her quite like the way Aizawa had, he seemed to have the ability to almost render her thoughts incoherent.

Well, it was not on her this time. She didn't initiate it. _But still, you could've pushed him away! You didn't have to sleep with him!_ Her brain screamed at her. It had taken quite some time for things not to be weird between them after that first drunken night, and she was definitely not looking forward to Awkward Conversation 2.0.

Beside her, Aizawa shifted, and his arm tightened around her waist, fingers stroking her bare skin in an absent-minded manner. Shiraishi gulped, and then she placed her hand on top of his, gingerly trying to remove his arm, so she could roll out.

As she tried to ease herself away from him, she heard his voice behind her, raspy and partially sleep-addled. "Shiraishi."

 _Okay. Be cool about this, Megumi. It's fine. It's okay. We're adults._

She grabbed the blanket, making sure that she was covered properly, before she sat up, and turned to look at him. His eyes were opened, staring straight at her, and suddenly, she felt even more flustered than she already was.

"Good morning," she squeaked out. "Uhhh…did you sleep well?" Inwardly, she winced. _Stupid remark to make. Can you be any lamer?_

To her surprise, the corner of his mouth lifted lightly. "I did. Did you?"

"I…uhhh…"

The sound of a door slamming broke into her thoughts and she froze.

 _Hiyama. Oh no, she's home!_

She glanced at Aizawa, something akin to panic rising in her throat. He wasn't dressed – he was still in her _bed_ , for God's sake – and she wasn't dressed either.

"You have to hide," she hissed at him frantically, grabbing her blouse from the floor. His shirt was next to her blouse; she picked it up and tossed it at him. "Just go into my bathroom, I'll go and distract Hiyama, take her out for breakfast, and then you can…"

"Shiraishi," he interrupted her tirade calmly. "My shoes are outside. Hiyama would have already known I'm here."

Shiraishi groaned out loud, and buried her head in her hands. She raised her head after a while, and turned to Aizawa. "I supposed you're right…ahhh, this is so…"

He was regarding her steadily, his face unreadable. "Do you want me to leave now?"

She raked her fingers through her hair, her head all jumbled up. "Yes…no…I, no, it's okay. It's no big deal, right?" she forced out a laugh. "I mean, this is just…it doesn't really mean anything."

As soon the words were out of her mouth, she thought she saw a flash of hurt skittering across his face, but it was gone so fast, she felt that she must have imagined it. He slipped on his shirt, buttoning it with precise movements, and retrieved his pants from the floor.

"Do you want to go out to Hiyama first?" He asked, as he stood up and ran his fingers deftly through his hair, neatening it.

She squeezed her eyes shut as she hurriedly tugged her hair back into a ponytail. This was going to be painful. "We'll go out together. And if Hiyama asks, we'll just tell her it's none of her business. I mean, we don't have to admit to anything. She can't make me say anything, this is my privacy…"

He placed his arm on her upper elbow. "Calm down. You're babbling. It's fine. You said it's 'no big deal', right?" There was a tone of irony in his voice.

She breathed once, twice, feeling oddly reassured by his hand on his arm. She straightened her shoulders, and put her hand on the doorknob.

* * *

Hiyama stared at the pair of decidedly male shoes, placed neatly next to the welcome mat. It wasn't as if she recognised those shoes, but she had a pretty good idea who they belonged to.

 _No. Way._

As if granting her the confirmation, Shiraishi's room door opened, and her housemate came out, looking awkward. Aizawa followed close behind her, looking indifferent as usual. Hiyama's eyes widened even further, and her jaw dropped opened. She was aware that she was gawking like an idiot, but it wasn't as if she could help it.

He picked up his jacket from where it draped over the back of the couch, and shrugged it on. Barely acknowledging Hiyama's presence, he turned to Shiraishi. "I'll see you at the hospital later."

"Okay," she managed, as she walked him to the door. As soon as the door closed behind him, Hiyama grabbed her by the arm.

"Tell me _everything_."

"There's nothing to tell!" Shiraishi exclaimed, extracting her arm from Hiyama's death grip.

"Shiraishi, Aizawa Kōsaku just _came out of your room_ at seven o'clock in the morning after clearly spending the night in your room. There's plenty to tell!"

"Hiyama, I really don't want to get into this," Shiraishi hurried past her housemate, and into kitchen, where she powered on the coffee machine.

Hiyama regarded Shiraishi with shrewd eyes, noticing the restless way that she was going about making her coffee. She stared at the coffee machine, chewing her lip, and didn't move to stop the machine as the coffee continued filling up, at the brink of spilling over.

"Shiraishi!" Hiyama lunged forward, and press the button to stop the coffee machine from dispensing more coffee.

She gave a start, and came to, staring at her too full coffee cup. "Oh. Thanks." She picked up the cup and sipped it immediately. She winced as the hot coffee burnt her tongue, setting down the cup hurriedly.

Something was definitely off with her friend. Suddenly, she knew that it just wasn't a simple matter of some drunken fling anymore. That excuse could only be legitimately used once, and that was it. "What is going on, really?" Hiyama finally asked.

"I told you, nothing is going on," she muttered, grabbing a box of biscuits from the kitchen shelf.

"Shiraishi. You really couldn't lie to save your life, so just tell me the truth. Once may be a drunken mistake, but twice?"

She buried her head in her hands, and groaned. "I don't know. It just happened."

"But…" Hiyama paused, trying to think of the best way to put it. "…does that mean the two of you are…?"

"Are?" Shiraishi raised her head and looked at her questioningly.

"You know…" She looked at her meaningfully. _Together. Dating. Having a relationship._

"Hiyama, why are you trying to make me say it? You knew perfectly well that we…"

" _No_ ," she cut off the other doctor exasperatedly. God, Shiraishi really needed to have things spelt out for her. "I'm not talking about you two sleeping together. Are the two of you…is this an official relationship?"

Shiraishi blinked at her. "No! Of course not!"

Hiyama raised an eyebrow. "So what is this? Friends with benefits?" Shiraishi wasn't the type to embark of this kind of arrangement, and she knew it. To her, some things were as clear as day, but evidently it was not to _some_ other people.

A deep red flush was creeping up her housemate's neck as she busied herself with opening the box of biscuits. "No! This is…well, it'll never happen again, so that's that."

Hiyama reached for her own mug and started the coffee machine. "I don't know, I'm thinking it may not be a bad idea that you two sit down and talk about this properly."

"He wouldn't want a relationship," her hand inched towards her coffee again. "You know that as well as I do, Aizawa is all about work, and nothing else. When has he shown any interest? All the nurses and female doctors vying for his attention, and there was never a response from him."

Hiyama looked at her disbelievingly. "Yes, and shouldn't it meant something that he _slept_ with you, seeing that he gave the others no attention?"

"Well, he wasn't _dating_ them as far as I could see, but I can't tell beyond that, can I?" A snappy tone had entered Shiraishi's voice, and Hiyama backed off.

Besides, speculating on Aizawa's sex life was seriously creeping her out. As if she wasn't already disturbed enough by the fact her housemate actually slept with the Ice King. _Twice_.

"I don't want to complicate things," Shiraishi said in a rush. "We're colleagues. Friends. This is just some spur of the moment thing. I was upset, and he was…I don't know, trying to be a friend, and this was all just in the heat of the moment," she insisted. "It's not complicated, Hiyama, please don't try to complicate things."

Hiyama sighed. She didn't know which planet was Shiraishi on right now, because all of that sounded pretty damn complicated to her. "Shiraishi..."

"I'm late for work," she said hurriedly, abandoning the biscuits and snatching up her cup of coffee.

* * *

Aizawa rubbed his eyes tiredly, and tried to focus on his typing. Glancing back at his medical notes, he looked at the laptop screen again to discover that he basically had been typing gibberish for the last ten minutes. Stifling a sigh, he tossed aside his notes, and then he deleted the entire document.

He had been functioning extremely poorly the entire day. Of course, a poor functioning level on his part was probably twice better than most people's best, but still. He caught himself spacing out twice throughout the day – once when he was supposed to be supervising Yokomine on a minor surgical procedure, and another time when he went to look for a patient when High Dependency Unit when he was the one to send her to Intensive Care Unit a mere two hours ago.

Both times he was discombobulated by her. The first time, she was rushing in from the Heli, with an injured patient, barking out orders, and looking so authoritative and commanding, and so in her element, that his attention was diverted to her, just for a moment. The second time, she was heading towards his way, and he almost reflexively stood up to get away from her. There were too many people around, and with the events of last night and this morning still playing in his head at random moments, he couldn't risk anything. He snuck out to escape her, and ended up in the wrong unit.

Aizawa was bothered by his own behaviour. This was extremely unlike him. He was never one for avoidance, he faced things head on, that had always been his style. But her reaction in the morning, the utter panic and the agitation, was putting questions into his head. Questions that he didn't know the answer to, and questions that were now messing up the balance of what he thought he knew.

And he hated it. He hated feeling that things were not in his control, he hated feeling uncertain, and she was making him feel that way. He thought there may be a chance that…

 _It doesn't really mean anything._

He stifled his train of thought. Aizawa Kōsaku was not supposed to be troubled by the matters of the heart. The popular opinion was that he didn't have much of a heart, anyway, at least, not for _this_ sort of matters.

He shook his head irritably, opening a fresh document, and grabbing his notes again. _Concentrate_ , he told himself firmly. Everything else could wait, but his work could not. He tried to clear his head, and then studied his notes intently. As his mind settled, he found himself typing rapidly, lost in the comforting familiarity of medical terms and diagnosis.

So engrossed he was that he didn't see Shiraishi entering the office, didn't see her momentary hesitation at the doorway, before she straightened her shoulders and walked in.

"Good job today," she murmured, and he gave a start, looking up. Their eyes met, his gaze holding hers for a few seconds, before he looked away, and resumed typing.

"Good job today," he replied, not saying anything else.

She nodded, walking over to her own desk, removing her stethoscope from around her neck and placing it on the desk. This was unnervingly like the situation they had faced the first time it had happened. Him and her in the same office, trying to put things into words. Shiraishi winced inwardly to herself. He wasn't going to say anything; again, he was going to make her take the first step.

She cleared her throat. "Aizawa?"

The typing stopped, and he glanced over to her. "Yes?"

"About…last night, and this morning, I'm so…"

"Don't apologise to me unless you feel like you truly have something to be sorry for," he interrupted. "If I recall things correctly, I initiated it."

She blushed, slightly taken back by his forthright manner. "Ah, well…"

"And _I'm_ not sorry. I don't feel like I did anything that I should apologise for," he continued on, and then he raised his eyes to hers. "Unless you feel differently."

"No! No, you don't have anything to apologise for. It was consensual." Inwardly, she winced. It sounded so cold and impersonal, but words were failing her, along with her coherency, with him looking at her like that. "But, I don't…you know, expect anything, I mean, I don't want a…" her voice trailed off.

 _I don't want a relationship because I am pretty sure you would not want one_. She was sure he didn't want one; some things did not need to be verbalised.

Aizawa looked away then, and resumed typing. "It's all right, Shiraishi. It was, as you said, just a thing. An accident. It didn't mean anything." His tone was matter-of-fact, holding no emotion whatsoever.

She put her head into her hands, inwardly kicking herself in the head. Her words were not coming out right. All she wanted to say was that she was – _they were –_ adult enough to put this aside, and she hoped for things to be normal between them, and that she cherished him as a colleague and as a comrade.

Aizawa sighed, and stood up. He walked towards her, and after a moment's hesitation, patted her twice on the shoulder. "I told you, it's all right. We're fine. I'm going to get a can of coffee from the vending machine. Do you want one?"

 _They will be fine. They will be normal._

She smiled at him, a small one. "Yes, please."

* * *

What was it that constituted as normality, anyway?

Things didn't seem to have changed between them. He told Yokomine off, and she told him to tone it down. He gave Haitani a dressing down for an obvious mistake, and she immediately followed up with comforting words of encouragement. He snapped at Natori for not being able to answer a simple question, and she was quick to defend the younger doctor.

She ran Lifesaving as the staff leader, as she usually did, but he didn't try to hold back his tongue when he thought she was obviously not making the best decision. They bickered, they squabbled, they had heated discussions, but among it all, they worked in tandem, one still able to read the other's thoughts when it came to all things medical and work-related.

But the personal interaction had changed, just a little. The quiet, more personal talks in the late of the night during their respective night shifts had dwindled. The drinks session at Mary Jane's now always incorporated one or all of Hiyama, Fujikawa and Saejima. They used to meet at the Helipad in the evening, canned drinks in hand, and talked about anything and everything that came into their heads. They still did that, but not as frequently anymore.

Maybe this was their new normal.

* * *

"I think Takehito-san can be moved into the normal ward by this afternoon if his blood pressure maintains," Shiraishi scribbled a note on the patient's file and handed it to Aizawa.

He scanned the document with a practiced eye, and nodded. "And how do you think Abiru-san is progressing?"

"I'm leaning towards keeping her in Intensive Care for another day. Her fever had just gone down, and I think with her complications, it still needs monitoring. I'll put Natori on it?"

He nodded again, as Shiraishi made a notation on the patient's chart. "And this third…"

 _Ding!_

The elevator halted to a stop, and they both looked up to see Shinkai strolling in. "Aizawa, Shiraishi-sensei, good morning."

Aizawa merely tilted his head in acknowledgement, but Shiraishi gave the neurosurgeon a warm smile. "Shinkai-sensei. It's an early day for you as well?"

"Oh, I'm always early," he smiled back. "Wouldn't want to miss out on anything, especially with this guy hot at my heels."

Aizawa didn't move a muscle, his eyes still on the case notes in his hands. Shinkai was keeping up a stream of polite talk, asking Shiraishi about the happenings of Lifesaving, when the elevator came to a stop.

"Shiraishi, this is our floor," he cut off Shinkai's chatter, walking past his former colleague.

"Ah," she smiled quickly at Shinkai and hurried out after him.

"Shiraishi-sensi!"

She turned around, but Aizawa kept his eyes firmly trained ahead.

"I'm not letting you go from the promised lunch. I'll see you at the cafeteria this afternoon, twelve o'clock, bearing in mind that you're not called out to rescue people?"

"Ah, Shinkai-sensei. I usually eat with Hiyama, so…"

"Surely Hiyama-sensei won't begrudge you for missing one lunch with her."

"Oh, well…" Shiraishi stammered, clearly not quite knowing how to say no. That was, if she had even wanted to say no in the first place.

"I'm sure Aizawa can tell you that I am _very_ persistent. I won't take no for an answer." He could see Shinkai turning up the charm out of the corner of his eye, and he felt his right hand curling itself into a fist.

"All right then, Shinkai-sensei. I'll see you during lunchtime later," Shiraishi flashed him a smile, and the elevator doors closed, leaving the two of them standing in the mostly empty hallway.

"Here," he said abruptly, making a move to take the files from her hands. "Since you're going to be busy during lunch, I'll finish reviewing these myself."

She stared at him. "It's eight o'clock in the morning. We'll finish reviewing these together well before lunch."

He clenched and unclenched his fingers. "Fine," he snapped, and stalked off towards their office.

She took bigger strides, and caught up with him. "What's the matter with you? Is everything all right?"

"Yes," he said shortly, entering the office and heading towards his desk. He damn well wasn't going to spell it out for her. If this was what she wanted, then so be it.

Shiraishi took her own seat slowly, and scrutinised the stone-faced Aizawa. She took a deep breath. "Aizawa?"

"What is it?" he responded curtly, not looking at her.

She exhaled. "Nothing. I'll let you know if I have questions."

If this was their new normal, she kind of hated it.

So did he.

* * *

A/N: Writing Aizawa angsting about something other than his grandmother and his father is very difficult and challenging. I'm trying not to make him into some lame guy whining about love and stuff, but at the same time, I want to portray that he really is not as heartless and devoid of romantic feelings as depicted, and Shiraishi kind of really matters to him. Season 3 makes me feel that Aizawa is way more sure of his feelings than Shiraishi is, so he's the one that's more…uhh…messed up for this story.

I am aware that all that these two need to do is really to talk and communicate properly, but I they're both stubborn in their own ways, and they hold perceptions of one another which they believed to be gospel, so.

I feel that this chapter is very dense and heavy on feelings and what not, so I hope to pick up the pace a little more the next chapter. What was intended at first to be a one-shot is really getting away from me, and fast.

Anyway, hope you enjoy this, and as always, reviews, comments, criticisms and suggestions are loved and appreciated loads!


	4. 04: what is it about feelings

chaptered fic; _between me and you_ (04: what is it about feelings)  
pairing: aizawa kosaku/shiraishi megumi  
word count: 4519 words  
note: more feelings and stuff, and I'm not very nice to Shinkai. More notes at the end.

* * *

"Lunch soon?" Hiyama deposited her stethoscope and her notebook on her desk, stretching herself slightly.

"Ah, yes, in a moment," Shiraishi murmured, scribbling quickly on a medical report. "By the way, Shinkai-sensei invited me for lunch today, would you like to join?"

"Wait, what? You're having lunch with _Shinkai_?"

"Yes, what's wrong with that?"

Hiyama merely stared at her friend. She could think of a few things wrong with that, but Shiraishi evidently couldn't. But then again, if she wanted to keep on insisting that there was supposedly nothing going on between her and Aizawa, she presumed it shouldn't matter.

Shiraishi stood up, pushing her chair back. "So, are you coming?"

It took Hiyama approximately five seconds to make up her mind. She hated to be the clueless idiot who would be putting a huge dampener on Shinkai's obvious plans, but she was going to have to do what she needed to do. For Shiraishi's sake, actually.

Her housemate could not, or rather, would not, see it, but Hiyama saw certain things, very clearly indeed.

"Sure," she said breezily. "Lunch with Shinkai-sensei sounds fine to me."

* * *

Shinkai looked up with a warm smile as Shiraishi approached him, lunch tray in hand, but his smile faltered, just a little, as he spotted Hiyama close behind her.

"Hello, Shinkai-sensei," Shiraishi set down her tray, and took a seat across from him. "I invited Hiyama to join us for lunch as well."

"Oh," the neurosurgeon said, shooting Hiyama a glance that was quite telling in its own way. Hiyama gave him a big smile, and pulled out a seat beside Shiraishi. _I'm not going anywhere and you can't make me._

Shinkai cleared his throat a little, and directed his attention to Shiraishi. "Had a busy morning today?"

"The usual," Shiraishi answers pleasantly, putting a straw into her juice bottle, and taking a sip out of it. "It hardly stops in Lifesaving, as it is, we are constantly on the go. But thankfully, the Fellows are learning, and they're getting to be more efficient, so the team is working well together."

"Thank goodness they didn't turn out to be as hopeless as I initially thought," Hiyama chimed into the conversation, emptying sugar into her coffee. "Aizawa certainly helped out a lot with that, don't you think, Shiraishi?" She positively didn't miss the slightly conflicted expression that flitted across Shiraishi's face when she said Aizawa's name.

"Yes, well, it was certainly because of him that the Fellows are vastly improving, but again, I would appreciate it more if he was less harsh with both his words and actions," Shiraishi maintained, picking up her chopsticks.

"You've known him for nine years, Shiraishi, surely you know you're asking for the near impossible," Hiyama said blandly, as Shiraishi smiled.

"That is very true, unfortunately."

Shinkai's smile was getting to be a little forced, as the conversation was clearly not going in the way he wanted it to go. "Let's not talk about work, it's lunch time, and we should be talking about something non-hospital related, right? So tell me, Shiraishi-sensei, how do you usually spend your weekends and days off?"

"She spends it studying," Hiyama answered on her behalf, nudging Shiraishi's shoulder with hers. "She reads updates and research on emergency medicine, and calls that relaxing. Unfortunately, our staff leader is a very boring person."

"Hiyama!"

Shinkai laughed, and winked at her. "I don't particularly find that to be boring. In fact, we're very similar, Shiraishi-sensei. My reading material in my leisure is also rather limited to medical and neurological journals."

 _Damnit, strike one,_ Hiyama thought.

"Well, I hope at least your friends don't call you dull," Shiraishi said, picking up her sandwich and taking a bite.

"Oh, that they do, actually. It looks like we not only share the same hobby, but also the same kind of friends," Shinkai smiled winningly as Shiraishi chuckled.

The obstetrician was about to say something to detract all the laughing and bonding when a shadow fell over their table momentarily. Aizawa stalked past their table, and then pulled out a chair at the next table, directly behind Shiraishi. She stiffened, suddenly very aware of his presence.

Hiyama, however, leaned over and poked Aizawa in the arm. "Eh, Aizawa. I know you usually like sitting by yourself like an anti-social hermit, but come join us. There's a seat next to Shinkai-sensei." Out of the corner of her eye, she saw an annoyed expression flitting past Shinkai's face, disappearing as quickly as it came, but then again, it wasn't as if she cared.

Aizawa remained silent. Taking up his chopsticks, he started eating his noodles, studiously ignoring his colleagues at the other table.

"Eh," Hiyama shrugged, and turned her attention back to her lunch table. At that moment, her phone rang.

"Excuse me," she said, and picked up the call. "Hiyama." She listened for a few seconds, and then nodded. "I'll be there in two minutes." Almost reluctantly, she stood up. "I have to go, there's an urgent caesarean needed in Emergency and they need my help."

Shinkai flashed her a very genuine smile as Hiyama bristled inwardly. "We shouldn't keep you, then."

 _I've done my part, and all I can say is, if you persist on being an idiot, Aizawa, I can't help you anymore._

* * *

Aizawa had hoped to avoid them, and he nearly turned back when he saw them as he entered the cafeteria. It had then seemed ridiculous to walk out of the cafeteria when he was already there. He supposed he could have chosen another table far away from them, but for some reason, he found himself carrying his tray to a table directly behind her.

He was now trying to finish his lunch, as indifferently as possible, but it was so difficult, with her being so close to his proximity. And it didn't help that he could hear every single bit of their conversation, and was privy to all of Shinkai's attempts to flirt with Shiraishi.

"So, which medical journals do you usually keep up with?" Shinkai asked in a converstional tone, propping his elbows on the table.

"New England Journal of Medicine…like everyone else," Shiraishi answered. "The Lancet, Nature…and oh, Annals of Internal Medicine."

"I see," he responded, taking a drink out of his juice bottle. "Strange question, but do you read medical blogs at all? There's a number out there that are very interesting and informative."

"Really? I wouldn't mind some recommendations…"

Aizawa was nearly grinding his jaw at this point, he was clenching his chopsticks so hard that he was close to snapping them into half. All he wanted to do then was to drag Shiraishi out of her chair, and made sure Shinkai stayed as far away from her possible. Forcing himself to relax, he relaxed his grip, and inhaled.

As much as he wanted to grab her right then, and kissed her, right in front of Shinkai, just to _show_ him, for once and for all, he didn't have the right to. He didn't have any claim on her. She made that very clear.

He pushed away his noodles, finding his appetite diminishing, and opted to have his black coffee instead. Behind him, Shinkai was complimenting Shiraishi on the strength of her team.

"…it must be really nice, to have colleagues that you've worked with together for years."

"Yes," she answered. "Hiyama, Fujikawa…Aizawa and myself, we were Fellows, and we never really strayed far from each other even after graduation. Aizawa went to Neurosurgery, Fujikawa, Hiyama and I stayed with Lifesaving, studying for our own specialisations, until Hiyama left for pre-natal care and obstetrics three years ago. And somehow, we're all together again."

"You must all share a really strong relationship. I'm sure even with Aizawa, whom I've never managed to get close to, in the past five years." A dark scowl came over Aizawa's face, Shinkai was doing this on purpose, knowing full well that he could hear him. "I'm sure you're quite close to Aizawa?"

He could sense her hesitating, before replying. "Yes, well, we're comrades. I've known him for years, and he's always been a supportive colleague, even when he was Neurosurgery."

It wasn't anything that he hadn't heard before, he had heard this in the elevator, but at that moment, Aizawa felt his heart dropped at her answer. Was that all she could really say about him? He was not the sort of person to talk about personal matters, feelings and emotions. Yet despite that, he confided in her about his grandmother. His father. She was the only person he had shared some of his pain and conflict with.

Once upon a time, they had both struggled over relationships with their fathers. These struggles went on throughout the years, her father's illness and subsequent deterioration, his difficulty in fully accepting his father into his life, in forming an actual father-son relationship. She was there for him, and he hoped that he was there for her too.

Was a comrade, a colleague, the best words she could find to describe him?

Suddenly, Aizawa felt like he couldn't sit there anymore, and pretend that everything was all right. Standing up, he picked up his lunch tray, his lunch barely touched, and deposited all of it at the disposal before stalking out of the cafeteria.

Shiraishi saw him leaving, and inexplicably, she felt as if a fist had been closed over her heart.

* * *

Hiyama tossed her stethoscope and her name tag into her locker, slamming the door shut. Grabbing her bag and quickly pulling her hair into a ponytail, she left the locker room. Shiraishi was in surgery, and Hiyama had promised to have takeaway dinner waiting at home once she was done with her shift.

The staff office was empty, except for Aizawa, who was sitting at his desk, eyes focused on his laptop as his fingers flew over the keyboard. Hiyama stopped, glancing at her colleague, and then she steeled herself, walking towards him.

"Hey, Aizawa."

"What is it?" he answered, his eyes not leaving the screen.

"I have to ask this, even though you're likely to tell me that it's none of my concern. What the fuck is going on between you and Shiraishi, pardon my French?"

His typing came to a stop, but his head did not move a single inch. He resumed typing after five seconds. "Nothing is going on."

"Are you stupid, or do you think I'm stupid?" Hiyama asked bluntly.

He finally turned to look at her, as he glared at her. "What exactly are you trying to say?"

"Are you…I don't know. Are you happy just sleeping with her, or do you actually want something more than that?"

His face twitched at her directness. "That's none of your business," he said coldly.

Hiyama glared back at him. "In spite of what you seemed to be thinking, I'm only asking because I care about Shiraishi. If your intention is to jerk her around, then please, let whatever happened between you stay in the past, and that's that. But if you're serious…" she took a deep breath. "…which I actually suspect you might actually be serious, then please, be an adult and talk to her. Properly."

He was silent, and then, "I wasn't the one who didn't want to talk about it."

She threw her hands up in the air. "Did you ever persist in trying? You know Shiraishi. She takes everything as a given, and if you agree to her whole stance that the times you two slept together were _accidents_ , then that will be what she will run with."

"She was very insistent that it was nothing." Thinking of what she said, the way she said it, it sent his heart into a spiral. "Shiraishi wears her heart on her sleeve. What she says is what she feels."

"That may be true, but that doesn't hold water if she doesn't exactly know how she feels. How you feel may have some bearing on how _she_ feels, have you thought about that?"

Aizawa exhaled slowly, but he again, said nothing.

Hiyama waved a hand. "Fine, then let's not talk about her. Let's talk about you. At the end of it all, what do _you_ want?" Her tone was brusque.

He stared at her, and then he swivelled back towards his laptop. "You don't need to know that."

"I don't," Hiyama agreed. "But I sure as hell hope that _you_ yourself at least know what you want."

Aizawa ignored her, consulting his notes, and Hiyama made a frustrated noise. "You know, for a brilliant neurosurgeon with an IQ of a few thousand or whatever, you're unbelievably useless when it comes to talking about emotions and feelings. You can slice into someone's brain without hesitation, yet this, you have no idea. Sort yourself out, Aizawa. If you want her, _tell_ her."

Hefting her bag over her shoulder, Hiyama then left the office. One down, one to go.

Aizawa closed his eyes, and ran his hands over his face. Hiyama's words reverberated in his head. He knew she was right but the truth was, he was…apprehensive. It seemed incomprehensible, because since when was Aiwaza Kōsaku unsure if himself?

But he was, because if all of this goes wrong, he'd lose her truly. Even as a friend.

* * *

"I'm home!" Shiraishi called out, taking off her shoes.

"Welcome home," Hiyama returned, looking up from the couch. Take-out boxes were set out on the coffee table, with plates and chopsticks, and cans of beer. "Finally, now I can eat."

"You could've gone ahead and started eating without me," Shiraishi hung up her jacket and her bag neatly on the coat rack. She joined Hiyama on the couch, grabbing a can of beer. Her housemate grabbed her own can of beer and pulled back the tab, scruntinising her.

"So. You and Shinkai. What's going on there?"

Shiraishi had just taken a drink of beer, and she nearly choked at that. "What!?"

"You heard me."

"Nothing! It was just a friendly lunch. God, Hiyama. What do you take me for?" As oblivious as she usually was, she didn't miss the implication this time.

Hiyama sighed. "Shiraishi, surely you felt Shinkai's intentions. If you don't, then let me tell you, my dear, sweet naïve friend. He's interested in you. And if you hadn't managed to notice it, Aizawa was pretty much pissed off at that fact."

Her housemate coughed, and took a drink of beer.

"Shiraishi…honestly. You have to deal with this thing between you and Aizawa. It's gone on long enough."

She flushed, looking down. "There's nothing…"

"No. Stop saying that, you know it's not true. It's been a month of the two of you consciously walking on eggshells around each other. You don't even fight that much anymore."

Shiraishi rubbed her temples, reaching for a take-out box, not saying anything.

Hiyama decided that she would not beat around the bush anymore. "Do you want it to be something more? Do you want to be with him?"

 _Yes_ , the answer came in her head, and she shook her head, trying to shake it off. "I…it's not that simple…"

"It _is_ that simple," Hiyama interrupted. "If you actually think there could something more between you and him, and if you want it, then just talk to him. Communicate like normal people, instead of playing guessing games. You're both too old for this, and you're supposedly too smart for this as well."

Shiraishi toyed with her beer can. "I…I don't want him to feel obligated. As if he have to give me something, just because we had slept together. He doesn't need to."

A sound of exasperation escaped Hiyama. "These are all your presumptions. If you don't talk to him, you don't know how he feels. Just…do that, okay?"

Shiraishi stayed quiet, and took a gulp of beer, as Hiyama eyed her tiredly.

"I can't force you to do what you don't want to do," she said finally. "But somehow, I think the two of you owe it to yourselves to properly talk this through, instead of pretending that everything is fine and normal when it clearly is not."

Shiraishi turned to her, and gave her a small smile. "Okay."

"Whatever that 'okay' means," Hiyama muttered under her breath. "Let's eat, I'm starving."

* * *

"Shi~raishi-sensi."

She turned around, startled, and saw a grinning Shinkai, one hand behind his back. "Ah, good morning, Shinkai-sensei."

From behind his back, he presented her a small bouquet of carnations. "For you," he smiled.

"Oh," she said. "For me?"

"Yes, and I am hoping these will help to persuade you to have dinner with me tomorrow," Shinkai said charmingly.

Shiraishi reached out and took the flowers, her mind spinning. She looked at the flowers, and then she looked at Shinkai. She took a deep breath, and handed the bouquet back to him. Shinkai's face fell, just a little.

"I'm sorry, Shinkai-sensei, I'm busy tomorrow night."

He looked at the bouquet, and smiled wryly. "And I supposed you'll be busy the night after tomorrow as well."

An apologetic look came over her face. "Shinkai-sensei…I'm…"

"It's okay, I understand. But please, keep the flowers. As a token of friendship." He pushed the flowers back towards her.

She smiled him gratefully for his graciousness. "Then I will accept these flowers as your friend."

He smiled back, shoving his hands into the pockets of his scrubs. "It's Aizawa, isn't it?"

"Eh?" Startled, she tried to regain her composure, but her body language was already telling. "Err…I…"

He immediately apologised. "You don't have to say anything, Shiraishi-sensei. Forgive me, I was out of line."

An awkward silence settled between then, before he spoke again. "Well, I do hope we'll still have lunch together sometime."

"Of course we will."

* * *

Aizawa slipped his staff tag over his neck, heading towards the emergency room, when he skidded to a stop. Shinkai and Shiraishi were standing just beyond the doors to the staffroom. Shiraishi was holding a bouquet of carnations.

A cold feeling crept over him, as he stared at them from a distance. As he watched, Shinkai said something, and Shiraishi smiled at him. Shinkai then stood back, hands in pockets, and they continued talking, before he flashed her a big smile, and left. Shiraishi stood there for a few seconds, and then still holding the flowers, she walked into the staffroom.

Aizawa stood where he was, his right hand clenched, as he fought to steady his emotions. Taking a deep breath, he recalibrated himself. This was not the time. He was on Heli duty today, he needed every single bit of concentration and focus.

He didn't have time for this.

In fact, he should never have had time for this.

* * *

Aizawa was perched on one of the railings surrounding the launchpad, sipping a can of coffee, as he stared out at the covered Heli. It had been a hectic day at Lifesaving, and the Heli was constantly flying, so he barely had a chance to see her all day.

Which suited him just fine.

He took a long drink, finishing the coffee, and then crushed the can, hopping off the railing. Just as he was about to head back to the hospital, he saw Shiraishi walking towards him, two cans of coffee in her hands. His step faltered, and then he stopped, waiting for her to approach him.

"Hey," she greeted him, and then her eyes fell on the crushed can. "Oh, you already had your coffee. But do you want one more?" She asked, holding out one of her cans. He took it from her silently, disposing of the crushed can into a nearby recyclable bin, and she took her place next to him on the railing, leaning back.

She inhaled deeply, trying to steady her emotions. "Aizawa, I was just thinking, that maybe I…"

"Shiraishi," he interrupted her, turning over the unopened can in his hands. "I'm temporarily transferring back to Neurosurgery. I've already informed Tachibana-sensei."

She stared at him. "Temporarily? For how long?"

"A month. One of the senior neurosurgeons is going on long service leave, and Saijo-sensei proposed the idea of me standing in, and I have agreed."

"Oh…I see," her tone was light and even, betraying none of her emotions. Her mind was racing, however. She was all prepared to talk to him, gathering her courage after the talk with Hiyama, and now…she felt thrown off.

"I'm certain Lifesaving will be fine. The three Fellows are shaping up to be capable emergency and flight doctors, even Haitani. Tachibana-sensei agreed with this assessment. I'll spend this one last week at Lifesaving, and I'll be returning to Neurosurgery."

"Well, it looks like that has been all decided," she looked away from him and stared out towards the Heli.

"And I think it'll be good for us to have some distance from each other, for a while," he said evenly, and she turned around to face him, her face surprised. There was something else there, too, but he couldn't really read into it. "Just to let things return to normal…between us."

She stared at him, a mix of emotions flickering in her eyes, and suddenly, he felt that he couldn't look at her anymore. He straightened himself, and walked past her. "Good job today," he murmured to her, almost under his breath, and forced himself to walk in his normal pace. It was all he could do not to run into the hospital.

Shiraishi's eyes were trained on Aizawa's retreating back, until he disappeared into the hospital. Exhaling shakily, she slumped back against the railing, trying to steady her breathing. So, Hiyama was wrong after all. He didn't feel any differently. There was no need to talk about any feelings he might have for her.

He had none.

She bit her lower lip, trying to suppress the tears that were threatening to spill over. She would not cry. If he was fine, then she was, too.

* * *

"What did you actually say to her?" Hiyama stopped him just as he was about the head into the locker room. It was a day after he told Shiraishi that he was transferring, and Hiyama was waiting for him at the staffroom.

"I said what she wanted and needed to hear," Aizawa said calmly, and he was about to walk past her when she grabbed his sleeve.

"Did you really? Because…"

"Hiyama, with all due respect, mind your own fucking business." He wrenched his sleeve from her grasp, and stalked into the locker room.

 _Well, fuck you, too_. Hiyama thought furiously. She was done with this jerk. And she'd make sure Shiraishi was, too.

* * *

The elevator doors opened, and Shinkai stepped in, immediately worsening Aizawa's mood. They nodded at each other, and rode in relative silence, before Shinkai spoke up.

"Well, Aizawa. I never thought that this would happen, to be quite frank, but I guess I have to concede defeat to you," Shinkai said, turning to look at him.

"What are you talking about?" Aizawa's voice was flat, and he had his arms crossed, barely looking at the other neurosurgeon.

"I'm talking about Shiraishi-sensei."

At that, Aizawa turned to stared at him. "What do you mean?"

Shinkai gave him a wry smile. "You've won this round. Shiraishi-sensei is a good person. Please treasure her." At that, the elevator pinged, and Shinkai stepped out, leaving an unusually dumbfounded Aizawa in the elevator, his thoughts jumbled and conflicted.

* * *

He had to talk to her. He had to find out, to ascertain what Shinkai had told him. He walked into Emergency, and the first thing he saw was her, monitoring the vitals of a patient as Hiyama was operating. Emergency was in one of its chaotic moments. His training immediately kicked into gear. Whatever it was, he was a doctor first, and there were lives to be saved. Personal matters would always have to come after.

"Aizawa, a hand please!" Fujikawa called, and he nodded, slipping on a surgical gown and going over to the shorter doctor. "I need you to help Haitani with clamping the vein. I have to set the broken hip bone before it gets worse."

He nodded, heading towards Haitani, and soon he was immersed in what he did best. The team worked in tandem, as time went on, treating the patients. It was at the back of his mind, even as he operated and saved lives. But Aizawa, being Aizawa, was able to compartmentalise his focus and his concentration very well.

Still, he had to talk to her.

The phone beeped, and Tachibana picked up the request for Doctor Heli. Getting all specifics and logistics in order, he nodded. Shiraishi grabbed her bag of supplies and fled past him, Natori and Saejima behind her, as they raced out towards the Heli.

Afterwards, he told himself. When she returns.

* * *

The Heli operator burst into the room, her tone one of pure panic.

"There's been an accident on location!"

Heads all over the emergency room snapped up, everyone looking at her in absolute shock. Tachibana was the first to react, walking over to her. "What do you mean? What happened?"

"I have Natori-sensei on the radio! Shiraishi-sensei was heading out of the building, after moving the patient to the ambulance, when the partially collapsed building crumbled further. Shiraishi-sensei, and a few others, are trapped beneath the rubble. Natori-sensei is requesting for more doctors on site."

Aizawa's heart literally stopped. A roaring sound filled his ears as he stared at the operator. Around him, he heard cries of dismay. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Hiyama frantically pressing her phone, biting her thumbnail, and then an expression of pure frustration came over her face as she jabbed at the phone. Fujikawa was already grabbing supplies, packing everything, with the Fellows all doing the same.

But he couldn't move. He was rooted to the spot, not able to do anything.

 _Shiraishi-sensei…trapped beneath the rubble…trapped…_

"Aizawa. AIZAWA!" He came to, and found himself staring at Tachibana. "You have to go. Take Fujikawa, Yokomine and Yukimura with you. Myself and Hiyama will follow, after I speak to Natori. Morimoto and Haitani will be on standby."

He looked at Tachibana-sensei. His mind was forming words, but they were not coming out. "Aizawa!" The older doctor said impatiently. "You have to go, now!" He yelled, before disappearing into the control room to connect with Natori.

"Aizawa," Hiyama's voice was measured, calm, as she thrusted a bag of medical supplies at him. "Focus. She needs you. Do what she would do. Go there as a doctor."

 _I need to focus. She needs me. I have to be there for her._

He came to, fixing Hiyama with a steely look. "I will." Strapping the supplies on his back, he raced out, the other three right at his heels. They all jumped into the Heli, and strapped themselves in, as the Heli took off.

Aizawa adjusted the headphones, and willed himself to take deep breaths. She would be fine. She would be safe. She had to be, because he would not accept anything else.

* * *

A/N: Just as I finished writing this, I saw the preview for the finale. A complete FML. What are the Code Blue writers trying to do to me, really? To us?

Anyway, again, apologies that this chapter is still a bit heavy, but I'm planning (hoping) for this to be the last leg of the will-they-won't-they thing. My original plot had an actual Shinkai/Shiraishi/Aizawa triangle, but I gave up on it…because my Aizawa muse kept wanting to literally kill Shinkai *shrugs* I don't think I have too much left to go since I cut out the triangle, but eh, something else might crop up…

Hope you enjoyed this chapter, and usual, all reviews, comments, criticisms and suggestions are greatly loved and appreciated!

 **EDIT** : In light of all the angsting and the heaviness the show is giving us...if anyone has prompts for fluff and what not, send it my way. I'll see what I can make out of them...I think I need to write something overly and disgusting sweet to make myself feel better, hahaha.


	5. 05: and i need you to stay with me

chaptered fic; _between me and you_ (and i need you to stay with me)  
pairing: aizawa kosaku/shiraishi megumi  
word count: 4454 words  
note: this chapter is kind of…heavy. And kind of depressing. And kind of wordy. Also, I am really bad at medical procedures and conditions (unlike **summermelon** ), so I apologise for any mistakes. I relied on Google and made my own assumptions about a lot of it.

* * *

Aizawa leaped off the Heli, medical supplies strapped onto his back, his gaze sweeping across the chaos of the building site. His eyes immediately landed on the crowd clamouring around a particular site, where rescuers were throwing aside debris and shoveling dirt. Instinctively, he knew that must be the site of the latest collapse.

The site where Shiraishi was probably trapped in.

It was almost an automatic response, as his legs took him towards that direction, before Fujikawa pulled him back. "Aizawa!" He nodded towards the control station, where Saejima was trying her best to hold the fort, as Natori ran around the rescued victims, examining them and tagging them as appropriate. "You have to take charge."

"You do it," Aizawa said brusquely, brushing his arm aside. He could not take up the responsibility, he could not make any decisions, not with her still unaccounted for. All he wanted to do right now was to run over to where she was, to look for her, to _save_ her. He could not, and would not leave her, not when he had a choice.

"Aizawa." Fujikawa's voice was firm, steady and uncharacteristically strict. "You have to do what _she_ would do. You cannot lose your head now, _not now_ , do you hear me? We need you to be a doctor, _she_ needs you to be a doctor right now. All these injured people need you, and all of us need someone to direct us. You have to do it, there's no one else."

He stared at the orthopaedic surgeon, his heart and his mind racing. A part of him wanted to lash out at the shorter doctor, for speaking so coldly, so matter-of-factly, when it was _Shiraishi_ that was unaccounted for. But as his eyes met Fujikawa's, he saw the fear, the worry and the helplessness clearly reflected in them. He knew the shorter doctor was right. They had to be doctors, there was no other choice, no other way right now.

Throughout the Heli ride, his mind was jumbled, elsewhere, all he could think of was her, trapped and possibly injured, and it actually physically hurt him to think about it. The possibility that she might even be…his brain could not have finished the sentence; it was incapable of doing so.

Fujikawa took charge in the Heli, communicating with the pilot, the ground, and the hospital, assuming Aizawa's usual role, without questions or comments. Somehow, he could tell, and he just seemed to _know_ that his friend needed a moment to compose himself. But a moment was all they could afford, and now, on location, Aizawa had to be who he was, a flight doctor, an emergency doctor. On the ground now, he knew that Fujikawa's expertise in orthopaedics was vital, and Aizawa was the most senior member of the team with Tachibana-sensei yet to arrive, and Shiraishi...

Steeling himself, he nodded, and they raced towards the area of the control centre.

"Haruka!" Fujikawa and Saejima shared a quick, tight hug as the flight nurse ran towards them. "I'm okay," Saejima responded quickly to his unanswered question. "But you need to go to the red zone. Natori is doing his best but…"

Aizawa clenched and unclenched his fist, surveying the chaos. There were lots of injured people, paramedics and other medical personnel were all trying their hardest to attend to everyone. He saw Natori at the corner of his eye, sparing only three minutes at most with the injured for assessment. His mind, and his training, snapped back into order. The one thing he could do, the only thing he could do now, was to be who he needed to be.

Aizawa Kōsaku had always managed to perform on location. He had never failed, and he wasn't about to start now.

"Yokomine, take over the triage duties from Natori," he said decisively. "Fujikawa, attend to the patients in the red zone. Yukimura, please assist him. I will request for more ambulances from nearby hospitals, the most they could spare. Those who are able to be transported with ambulances, arrange it straight away. I'll get the Heli to be on standby once Tachibana-sensei and Hiyama arrive. Saejima, you'll stay with me. We'll help to stabilise the patients in the red zone as well. Everyone, keep in touch via the radio. Do not lose the contact amongst each other."

"Copy that," Fujikawa nodded, and took off immediately, Yukimura following him with all the medical supplies. Yokomine grabbed the tags and started assessing the condition of all the untagged patients.

"Natori!" Hearing his name, the young intern ran up to him, looking exhausted, but determined. "Yokomine will perform the triage duties. As for you, attend to the patients in the yellow zone."

Natori nodded, stripping off his bloodied gloves and pulling on a pair of clean ones. Just as he was about to turn away, Aizawa grabbed him by the shoulder. "About Shiraishi…"

He looked down at his hands. "Shiraishi-sensei was helping to bring out a critically injured patient that she had helped to stabilise. She was about to go back inside – there was another injured woman still needing medical attention – when the remaining structure just crumbled. I…she…I don't know whether she was buried under the debris, or merely trapped in the space within. But I couldn't get her on the radio, neither could I get her on her phone. I…" he looked up at Aizawa, his voice trailing off as he visibly tried to get his emotions under control.

"Stay focused," Aizawa said commandingly, and Natori nodded, and ran towards the yellow zone.

 _Stay focused_. Those words were for him, he thought, more than they were for Natori. He has to concentrate on his task at hand now.

Crouching next to a woman with a bloodied head, Aizawa unzipped his bag of medical supplies. "I'm Aizawa from Shohoku Lifesaving Centre, can you hear me?" The woman groaned, and then gasped for breath. He felt her pulse, and then checked her pupils. "Prepare for intubation," he told Saejima, who gives him a brief nod, and then started taking out the equipment.

Two firefighters ran by, and on a whim, he straightened himself. "What is the situation with the newly collapsed site?" He asked, catching the arm of one of the firefighters.

"We're trying to shift away the rubble the best we can. But we have to be really careful, as we may be risking another collapse," the firefighter explained quickly.

"How many trapped are in that site?" Aizawa continued asking, forcing his voice to stay calm.

"We don't know. There were quite a few members of the rescue personnel there, including the Shohoku flight doctor, at that location when it crashed, as well as five more injured workers who were originally there. We're working our hardest on trying to rescue all of them. But the structure is shaky, and we need to be careful. We cannot rush it and risk a second collapse."

"Thank you. Please try your best."

The firefighters tilted their head in acknowledgement, and rushed off.

He returned his attention to the patient on the ground, steadying his hands as he intubated her. His thoughts were still in a jumble, and he had to actively force himself to concentrate.

 _Hold on, Shiraishi. You have to hold on, no matter what._

There were too many things that were unsaid between them. Things that should have been said better but yet, were never said. Perhaps both of them were to be blamed. He was stubborn, stubborn to a fault, steadfastly refusing to be the one to take that step, because it seemed like she didn't want it.

Aizawa was scared of failing. He always had feared failing, because that was never an option in his book. Therefore, he took what he believed to be the truth, that everything between them was accidental, temporary, meaningless, instead of facing it as it was, as he would with all other matters. Hiyama was right; he was completely inept at matters of the heart.

How could it ever had been meaningless? It was _Shiraishi_. It meant everything. He should never had let her run with the accident narrative, never should have accepted it. Even if it meant failing, he should have confronted it, confronted her, confronted _them_. He should have fought for her.

He now hoped that he would still have a chance to fight for the possibility of them.

Aizawa closed his eyes, and took a deep breath, and mustering every inch of professionalism he possessed, he redirected his focus to being the staff leader in Shiraishi's absence, for the injured's sake, and for her sake.

* * *

 _Where am I?_

 _Ouch, my head really, really hurts._

 _Why is it so hard to open my eyes?_

 _My leg really, really hurts, too._

 _Think, Megumi. Think, and open your eyes._

 _Wait, my eyes_ are _opened. But everything is really dark._

Shiraishi's thought processes were all muddled, as her eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness. She was lying on the ground – a dirt ground, and it seemed like every single part of her body was hurting. She tried to get her bearings in order, and tried to get her memory into some sort of working order.

That had been an infrastructure collapse at a construction site. She had arrived via the Heli, with Natori and Saejima. There had been quite a number of wounded workers…she had left Saejima in charge of triage with Natori's assistance as she had to attend to the victims that were unable to be moved without medical attention.

She remembered opening the chest the of a young man, and stabilising a lung injury. The patient had been sent out, and she was going back in there to attend toanother woman needing treatment…and then, she remembered seeing something crumbling out of the corner of her eye, and then, nothing.

She drew a breath, and then grimaced, feeling a sharp pain at her chest. She shifted herself gingerly, and tried to sit up. Pain shot through what seemed like every single nerve in her body, and she found that she was unable to move.

Panic descended upon her, but she squashed it down, forcing herself to remain calm. As her eyes adjusted further, she realised the reason that she was unable to move. A large wooden beam was pinning her down, weighing heavily on her chest. Wincing, she moved her hands, and tried to shove off the beam, but it was too heavy.

Shiraishi tested her legs, and found that she was able to move them, although not without pain. However, she was effectively rendered immobile by the wooden beam. Gradually recovering her ability to assess, she found that she seemed to be trapped in a tight space, sort of an alcove. The fallen dirt and rubble had formed that little alcove of some sort around her, with the other collapsed beams acting as very fragile support.

It wouldn't take much for it to collapse, if the rescuers were not careful.

 _Don't panic, Megumi_ , she told herself sternly. Feeling the radio strapped to her upper arm, she managed to pull it out, only to see that it was partially crushed, however, the little screen still had a light.

She pressed a few buttons repeatedly, and to her relief, heard a crackling sound. "Natori-sensei?" she said out loud. "Saejima?" No response came back to her. "Natori-sensei?" she tried again. The other end of the radio remained quiet.

Sighing, she lowered the radio. _Guess it wasn't working after all_. She had no way of reaching anyone, and she had no way of moving. All she could do right now was to hope that the rescuers would get to her soon. She just hoped that there was enough oxygen flow in the alcove, enough for her to hold on to.

She took another breath, and another stab of pain shot through her chest. She tried to steady her breathing, taking small breaths, but the pain persisted. The medical side of her brain began working rapidly, thinking of the causes. Either she had fractured a rib, or ribs, or she might have a pneumothorax, a collapsed lung. Bearing in mind that there was a giant wooden beam crushing her chest, both conditions certainly seemed possible.

It was getting harder and harder to breathe; the pain was increasing, and she was beginning to feel a little light-headed. She knew that she was in a rather precarious position, and time was of the essence here. And time was running out.

Shiraishi breathed once, fighting through the agonising pain. She had to stay awake, and she had to stay as alert as possible. This was her only fighting chance.

* * *

"Aizawa!" He looked up to see Tachibana and Hiyama jumping off the Heli. Fujikawa immediately took command of the Heli, transporting a stabilised, but critically injured patient. "I'll come back once I hand over to Morimoto-sensei," he yelled over the whirring of the chopper, as Aizawa nodded.

The three of them ran towards the control centre, where Aizawa had managed to write down everything: number of injured, in various stages, number of transported patients, the hospitals they were transported to, and so on.

Tachibana's eyes landed on a name on the board – _Shiraishi: UNACCOUNTED_ _FOR._ Hiyama's gaze followed his to the board, and momentarily, she looked grief-stricken, her face pale, but then she steeled herself. "Which way should I go?"

"Hiyama-sensei!" Natori shouted from the red zone. "I have a pregnant woman here, bleeding heavily. I need your help!"

Tachibana nodded at Hiyama, and she took off, kneeling down beside Natori as she began her assessment.

The Lifesaving department head looked at the board. "Good job, Aizawa," he said quietly. He was about to continue when two firefighters ran up to them.

"Sensei, we managed to remove the debris and rubble of the second site, and managed to rescue a few of the injured. We need doctors there right now!"

Aizawa was already moving, his hand on the bag of medical supplies, when he heard that there were survivors at the site, the site where Shiraishi was at, and then he stopped. Shiraishi would have never left the control centre unattended. His hand tightened on the red and orange bag, as he looked towards the second site.

But he had to be there. He just had to be.

As if he was reading Aizawa's mind, Tachibana stepped forward, and picked up a marker and started writing on the board, drawing out a portion of board to record the details of the injured at the second site, while speaking rapidly into his radio. "This is Tachibana. I am taking over as the staff leader for now. Listen for my instructions."

As a smattering of responses came over the radio, Tachibana's eyes rested on Aizawa's conflicted face. "Go," he said simply.

Aizawa bowed in gratitude, and then he took off towards the direction where Shiraishi was.

 _I'm coming, Shiraishi. Hold on, I'm coming for you._

* * *

Shiraishi took another shuddering breath, trying her hardest to regulate her breathing to minimise the pain. It was getting to be unbearably bad, and by now, she was pretty sure she had a collapsed lung. She had been keeping her ear out for any sounds or noise, an indication that rescue was near, but there was nothing but silence surrounding her.

It was also getting harder and harder to stay conscious and alert, with the lack of oxygen in that little space. Coupled with the collapsed lung, the situation was indeed not the best, to put it very mildly.

The possible that she may really die here, surrounded by dirt and rubble, was becoming a terrifying reality.

She thought about her mother, and tears immediately welled up. Her mother had no one but her, since her father passed away six years ago. She wished that she had visited her mother more, or insisted that she moved to Tokyo. But it was already too late for what ifs and should haves. She hoped her mother would be able to cope, if the inevitable really happened.

She thought about her beloved Lifesaving team. Her mentors, Kuroda-sensei, whom she could never repay, Tachibana-sensei, Mitsui-sensei, Morimoto-sensei. They taught her all that she knew, and she could only hope that she was not a disappointment to them.

The Fellows. She wished she could tell them how proud she was of all of them. They had all come such a long way. She wished she could've told Haitani that he would be a great doctor, because he had the heart, that Natori would be a doctor as revered as his father, and Yokomine would be outstanding in her own way.

And her comrades, her colleagues, her friends in Lifesaving. Hiyama, Fujikawa, Saejima…and Aizawa. Nine years, they had walked together. They were with her, through all the ups and downs. They had laughed together, cried together and grew together. She could not imagine how her life would've been without all of them.

Shiraishi hoped Hiyama would be all right. She probably would be, Hiyama was strong, much stronger than what everyone perceived her to be. Fujikawa and Saejima would be fine. They had each other after all.

And Aizawa.

She could feel a pain in her heart when she thought about him, a pain that had nothing to do with her injuries. It was the pain of regret, regret that she didn't have the courage to face herself, didn't have the courage to acknowledge her own feelings.

It wasn't nothing, it wasn't _a thing_ , she could see it clearly now. They had shared something special, him and her. He had always been there for her, from the day he chased after her, out in the rain, and crouched beside her, his hand on her shoulder, giving her the comfort she needed, not caring that he was getting drenched. He was with her with every single challenge, every single difficult surgery or situation she encountered in Lifesaving. He was with her when she was unable to cope with losing patients. He was the first to comfort her when her father died, and he was by her side, all those long days and nights when she grieved.

It wasn't an accident, it never was, because she was acting on her feelings for him, and perhaps he was acting on his feelings for her, too. She should've been brave, and she should've talked to him about it. What was the worst that could have happened? He may tell her that he did not feel the exact same way as she did. But she would have given herself a chance, given the possibility of _them_ a chance.

She would have no regrets, at the very least.

Funny how you tend to gain the perspectives and realise the truth when you were approaching the end of it all, as if the truth that you finally realised would be of any use, when it probably wouldn't be.

Shiraishi felt her chest constricting, hurting, and her eyes slipping shut. Gritting her teeth, she forced her eyes open, and gasped in another breath. Reaching for her radio again, she pressed the buttons again, and tapped it weakly against the wooden beam, before raising it to her lips.

The radio crackled, and she held on to that little beacon of hope. And then she heard a voice, coming through intermittently, its tone strong and confident.

" _Tachibana-sen…all evacuated injured...initial treatment…tagged accordingly…sent out...I'll continue…rescue work…if you need me."_

The voice was familiar. She knew that voice, but she couldn't think right now, the lack of oxygen, the pain, it was all getting to her. But someone was there, on the other end, and she could let them know she was here. Gathering all her strength, she spoke into the radio. "This…is…Shiraishi."

She waited, as the radio buzzed, emitting white noise, and then…

" _Shiraishi? Shiraishi, is that you?_ "

As her breathing grew more labored, as the pain intensified further, as she felt her consciousness slipping away, Shiraishi was still able to smile, albeit weakly.

It was Aizawa's voice.

* * *

Aizawa knelt next to a young man, tightening the tourniquet on his thigh. The young man's leg was a bloodied mess of bones and flesh, but all he could do now was to stop the bleeding. "Take him out to the red zone," he instructed the paramedics, as he turned to another wounded person. The man had a huge gash on his head and he was moaning in pain. Aizawa quickly assessed his situation, and deemed the head injury to be superficial. Nevertheless, he could not rule out a possible concussion. He slipped a yellow tag over the man's hand, and scribbled a note for a CT scan, before moving on to the next patient.

He worked meticulously, Shiraishi never far from his mind, as he waited, and waited, praying for her to be found. The rescuers methodically and carefully removed debris, rubble, wood and dirt. Some of them sustained minor injuries, and he hoped that Shiraishi would be one of them. She may be trapped, but perhaps she was not seriously injured.

As he tagged the last patient, his radio came to life, and he pressed the button, his message intended for Tachibana. "Tachibana-sensei, all of the evacuated injured at the second site had been given initial treatment and tagged accordingly. I've sent them all out. I'll continue to stay here, rescue work is still ongoing. Let me know if you need me."

He waited for the reply, and then he heard it.

" _This…is…Shiraishi."_

His heart nearly stopped, and then it started beating so fast, he thought it was going to jump out of his chest. "Shiraishi? Shiraishi, is that you?"

" _Shiraishi!"_ Hiyama's voice interrupted, bursting through the radio. " _Shiraishi, where are you?_ "

"… _yes…I'm…near…the entrance."_

He was gripping the radio so hard that he was on the verge of breaking it. His eyes flitted towards the rescuers, clearing away pieces of wood and debris. Eyeing the structure of the unfinished building, it did seem to be some sort of entrance. She might be there.

Scrambling to his feet, Aizawa raced towards that direction. "Shiraishi, hold on. The rescuers are nearly there." He could see Hiyama running towards him as well, a bag strapped to her back and another orange bag in her hands.

"… _getting…hard…breathe…"_

His heart in his throat, he stood there as the rescuers threw aside pieces of wood, resisting the urge to join them in removing the debris. "Stay awake. Can you hear me? Don't go to sleep!"

" _Aizawa…sorry…"_

He could literally feel his heart shattering at her words, forced out through laboured breathing. She was drifting away, he could hear it, the rattling breaths…the tone of regret. No, he refused to let himself entertain that thought. "Shiraishi, don't apologise to me. You've got to hold on. Just a while longer."

Silence.

"Shiraishi! Stay with me, damnit!" He said, his tone frantic.

A firefighter heaved away a particularly huge piece of wood, and then he gave a shout. "There's someone in here!" The other firefighters began removing the bits of debris as Aizawa scrambled over, Hiyama close at his heels, both of them literally sliding across the dirt.

And then he saw her, a wooden beam weighing down on her chest. Shiraishi's eyes were closed, her face pale. Her broken radio was still in her hand, but her grip was slack.

The firefighters grappled the piece of wood, and lifted it off her as Aizawa flew to her side, kneeling down beside her. He reached out blindly, grabbing her hand, and squeezing it hard. "I'm here," he said. "I'm here, Shiraishi."

Shiraishi moved her head, her eyelids fluttering weakly, and to his relief, he felt the slightest pressure on his hand as she pressed her fingers weakly against his hand. Hiyama crouched down beside them, pressing her fingers against Shiraishi's neck, feeling her pulse. "Her pulse is weak," she confirmed. "I think she has a lung injury, based on her breathing over the radio, and her shallow, rattling breaths right now."

"I agree," Aizawa said, as Hiyama wrenched down the zipper of Shiraishi's flight jacket. Her chest was marred with an ugly purple and black bruise, confirming their suspicions.

"…pneumothorax," Shiraishi mumbled. "…need…thoracic…decompression…"

"Stop diagnosing youself," Hiyama attempted a joke, as she slipped an oxygen mask over Shiraishi's face, and put on her stethoscope, listening to her breathing. "Have faith in us."

She smiled faintly, gradually losing consciousness, as Aizawa and Hiyama exchanged glances. "It's definitely progressing into a tension pneumothorax," Hiyama said, removing her stethoscope and slinging it over her neck. "We need to release the air trapped in the pleural space, now."

Aizawa nodded, and unzipped his bag of supplies. "Saejima!" he called, and the flight nurse ran over, her eyes widening in combination of shock and relief as she saw Shiraishi lying on the ground.

"Shiraishi-sensei!" She dropped down onto the dirt beside them.

"Saejima, I need a gauge needle, fourteen, and a catheter, stat," Aizawa said, as he grabbed the iodine and poured it over Shiraishi's chest.

Saejima prepared him the equipment he needed, and then immediately started inserting an intravenous line into Shiraishi's arm, putting in a saline drip. Aizawa pressed his fingers expertly against Shiraishi's chest, searching for an entry site. He found it, over the third rib, and with two fingers on the site, he took the needle from Saejima, and angled it at ninety degrees. He breathed in, holding the needle with a surprisingly slightly shaky hand. He had done this a million times, he could do this in his sleep, but this was Shiraishi lying there.

"Aizawa, come on," Hiyama said, her eyes on the oxygen meter. Aizawa steadied his hand, and with one precise, quick movement, he inserted the needle, straight into Shiraishi's chest. As he heard the rush of exiting air from the needle, his shoulders sagged, as he felt the tension escaping him a little. Saejima bowed her head, and Hiyama clasped her hands together in relief.

"Chest tube," he said briskly. He now needed to perform the tube thoracostomy, and he did it within minutes. As Hiyama and Saejima secured the tube, he radioed Tachibana.

"Tachibana-sensei. We found Shiraishi. She's safe, but she's injured. Tension pneumothorax due to trauma, possible fractured ribs, and possible concussion. Is the Heli available for transportation?"

" _Yes. Bring her up_."

Paramedics swarmed in, carefully lifting Shiraishi and placing her on a stretcher. Securing her, they prepared to transport her back to Shohoku. From her journey from the accident site, to the Heli, and eventually back to the hospital, Aizawa did not let go of her hand.

He felt like he never, ever wanted to let go of her again.

* * *

A/N: This chapter is a doozy to get out, and admittedly hard for me to write, which was why I took so long with it. I _think_ this is the last bit of the heavy angst stuff…but then again, I can't guarantee the workings of my brain sometimes. I envisioned the next chapter to be lighter in the tone as these two will be working out their issues...properly. Hopefully I'll be able to get the next chapter out quicker.

Writing the chapter before this with all that Aizawa/Shiraishi angsting basically made me go on a spree of writing fluff (and some of them were so random, whut), so who knows, may happen again and I'll be spamming the fandom all over again. On that note, if you have any prompts, do send them my way and I'll see what I can do out of it. As it goes, I think I still need to write something overly fluffy to compensate for all of this.

Do let me know what you think of this thus far...reviews, comments, criticisms and suggestions, as per usual, are loved to the max and very welcomed. Thanks so much for sticking with this story!


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